The present study introduces some of the key methodological issues in conducting and using effectiveness reviews, taking reviews of accident and injury prevention in older people as an example. A comparative analysis of six effectiveness reviews was undertaken. These reviews all related to the impact of exercise on falls in older people but offered apparently conflicting conclusions. The reviews were compared in terms of their scope, search strategies, methodological quality criteria, methods for data extraction and synthesising findings and review conclusions. The reviews were found to differ in terms of: whether they addressed a narrow or broad scope; the number of studies they included; and the quality criteria used to assess the included studies such that the same studies were treated differently in different reviews. Although the implications for research and practice from the reviews were found to conflict across different reviews, the authors of the reviews exercised caution when drawing final conclusions which served to minimise these conflicts. These results are discussed in terms of the implications for effectiveness reviews and their methodology within health promotion.
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