Second, we should encourage reviews that incorporate the patient's perspective, including the potential harm of treatment, quality of life, what care is locally available, and the health costs. Current systematic reviews rarely do this. Third, narrative reviews encourage new thinking. In a review of the experimental evidence on angina, Yellon and colleagues speculated that ischaemia might, paradoxically, be cardioprotective. 17 Selective citation of evidence allowed these researchers to make an original and important claim that required further investigation.
Science depends on such well judged intellectual freedom.
Narrative reviews develop connections between lines of evidence that cannot easily be combined either systematically or quantitatively-e.g., between the biosciences and social sciences, between molecular medicine and epidemiology. At The Lancet, we welcome systematic reviews and meta-analyses that are novel, robust, and clinical, and we will publish these research papers as well as more traditional narrative reviews. Health information systems. 2 Hunt DL, Haynes RB, Hanna SE, Smith K. Effects of computer-based clinical decision support systems on physician performance and patient outcomes. The unstable medical research paper.