Answer

Appraising Systematic Reviews

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• Does the systematic review answer the research question? Explain your rationale.

Only one of the systematic reviews has sufficiently answered the research question (Wang et al., 2019). The other article provided inconclusive results which may still be useful in providing a foundation and direction for the current research (O’Hara et al., 2016). The first article aimed to conduct a systematic review of both the quantitative and qualitative literature so as to identify and describe the effectiveness of interventions meant to improve clinical, behavioral, and psychosocial outcomes for the young adults with type 1 diabetes. The findings were inconclusive owing to the heterogeneity among the studies which prevented the identification of high-quality, well designed interventions (O’Hara et al., 2016). The second article aimed at evaluating the efficacy of mHealth as compared to other interventions meant to control HbA1c levels in both children and adults with T1DM. The findings show that the mobile health interventions are effective among T1DM patients (Wang et al., 2019).

• Was the search comprehensive and reproducible?

The two articles were comprehensive and reproducible since the steps taken to attain the final results have been fully described. For the first article, 2,048 studies were identified through database search. Out of this number, 348 duplicates were removed. 1,700 records were screened whereby 1,683 were not found to meet the set criteria for inclusion. A total of 18 studies were included in the review (O’Hara et al., 2016). In the second article, a total of 5,302 studies were identified in the database search. Out of this number, a total of 2,111 duplicates were removed. After screening, 3,183 others were excluded for not meeting the set criteria. A total of 8 studies were included in the review (Wang et al., 2019).

• Did each systematic review include a section addressing limitations and how they were addressed?

Yes. Both studies feature sections where the limitations have been discussed. The recommendations on dealing with these limitations in future studies have also been highlighted.

• Based on this evidence summary, would you consider either or both of these systematic reviews as support for your selected practice problem? Explain your rationale.

Based on the evidence summary, I would still consider both studies as support for my current evidence based practice problem. Although the article by O’Hara et al., (2016) has inconclusive findings, it will still be important in offering direction for the current research. It has highlighted important factors that relate to the nature of interventions that need to be further analyzed to offer insights relevant to the young adult population. The article by Wang et al. (2019) is also relevant since it has highlighted the effects of certain factors including mobile applications on the improvement of T1DM outcomes.