From: Current state of ethics literature synthesis: a systematic review of reviews
Publication type: | Published journal articles |
Language: | Title/abstract level: only articles with at least an abstract in English, German, or French Full text level: only articles in English, German, or French |
Content: | The article must: |
Inclusion | (a) Be explicitly concerned with normative ethical considerations of medical topics. This meant the article had to, e.g.: i. Pose an ethical question ii. Determine ethical problems/challenges iii. Address ethical decision making or the use of ethical frameworks for decision making iv. Explore ethical views or reasons for/against a decision, etc. v. Look for/produce empirical data for ethical decision making or ethical evaluation vi. Examine ethical regulations or recommendations, etc. It was not sufficient for the abstract to mention, e.g., that the results of the study indicate that there are ethical issues |
(b) Have an identifiable description of at least some methodological elements describing a reproducible literature search (e.g., search terms, databases used, or inclusion/exclusion criteria), irrespective of its own possible labeling as “narrative” or “systematic” review. Only mentioning that “a review was done” was not enough | |
(c) Only on full text level: be a review of normative literature or a review of mixed literature. | |
Exclusion | (a) Not be a review of study protocols or of ethics consultation documentation (b) Not be solely concerned with legal analysis (c) Not solely address “meta”topics of (systematic) reviews, e.g., methodology of literature reviews in bioethics or for ethical aspects in HTA [17, 19–21], methodologies of empirical ethics research [11] or discussions about (research) ethics in (medical) systematic reviews [22] (d) Only on full text level: not be (solely) a review of empirical literature |
Quality: | No quality appraisal criteria used (all reviews included that meet the criteria above) |