The reviewed articles should include studies using original data, in other words do not provide a critique of a review paper. Consider your literature review as the basis for the beginning of the full written paper of your proposed study.
Your literature review paper will include:
Title page (APA format)
seven page paper where you will introduce the research under review, briefly summarize the articles included in your literature review, critically appraise the research articles, concluding the literature review by summarizing the specific main findings and what the literature has shown, identifying any gaps that you have found in your review.
Reference Page(s) – Ensure appropriate APA format for in-text citations and reference page(s)
Cite relevant published reports, best practice guidelines for health professionals and peer-reviewed articles to support your viewpoints (minimum of 4 current {< 5 years} peer-reviewed articles). Please cite references according to APA format.
Research Question – State the research question. Describe the population, intervention, comparison, and outcome criteria.
Introduction - Define the topic of your study. Provide background information about your research question topic. Explain your reason for reviewing the literature on this topic (ie gap in knowledge, studies out of date). Re-state the research question guiding the review.
Body – Provide background on the health issue, including epidemiology and pathophysiology (if relevant). Use appropriate research literature sources that reflect the current knowledge and the issue under study. Use and describe appropriate strategy to search the literature. Describe how many articles were found at each step of the search strategy and how you narrowed down and excluded papers resulting in your 4-6 papers. Identify how many articles you started with and the types of articles that were used in the review. Briefly summarize each paper. Include a description of the number of participants, recruitment strategy, type of study design used, and results. Critically appraise the reviewed literature of the 4-6 studies identified. This includes a summary of what value and usefulness the study has to the literature, what was done well in the study and what requires further work. Ensure that you compare, contrast, and connect the articles that have been selected. Identify any gap(s) and controversies in the research. Provide an argument that leads to a brief description of the proposed study. This is not just a description of a series of studies. Describe why the proposed research is important.
Conclusion – Provide a summary of the specific main findings and results from the articles that were reviewed. Describe the information that was particularly important to know that answered the question guiding the literature review.