The efficiency of research translation heavily depends on the reliability and validity of the conducted studies. Practices of meta-synthesis and meta-analysis allow combining data from multiple resources for the improved statistical analysis, providing the highest quality evidence on a research topic. By reducing bias and presenting consistent findings within the old and new academic paradigm, meta-synthesis and meta-analysis play an integral part in the pharmaceutical process of approving drugs.
Meta-analysis is beneficial for the research translation since it investigates the variation phenomenon and helps to establish causes for the variation. According to Leary and Walker (2018), decisions regarding the effectiveness of an interference or the validity of the research question cannot be derived on the basis of a single study. Therefore, a thorough synthesis of data across the studies is needed.
As explained by Lee (2018), in the applied research, the practice of meta-analysis is crucial for determining which pharmaceutics gain FDA approval, with the agency requesting a meta-analysis of the essential components of the medicine. Since meta-analysis applies objective statistical formulas to identify patterns in the information collected, the largely subjective bias present in narrative reviews is minimized.
Together with meta-analysis, meta-synthesis provides a high-level summary of the existing scholarly literature on the researched subject matter. As mentioned by Lachal, Revah-Levy, Orri, and Moro (2017), the comprehensive nature of the method allows scholars to investigate a much larger set of evidence, presenting the topic from a multitude of perspectives, applied in the research translation. Meta-synthesis is specifically evident in the development of clinical guidelines for nursing professionals, wherein a wide scope of viewpoints is crucial for the integration of current literature into medical practice.
References
Lachal, J., Revah-Levy, A., Orri, M., & Moro, M. R. (2017). Metasynthesis: An original method to synthesize qualitative literature in psychiatry. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8, 269-278. Web.
Leary, H., & Walker, A. (2018). Meta-analysis and meta-synthesis methodologies: Rigorously piecing together research. Technological Trends, 62(5), 525-534. Web.
Lee Y. H. (2018). An overview of meta-analysis for clinicians. The Korean journal of Internal Medicine, 33(2), 277–283. Web.