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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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McCombes, S. (2023, September 11). How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved June 11, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/literature-review/

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

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• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation
• What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

• Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
• Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your  dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

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McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 11 June 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

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Literature reviews, what is a literature review, learning more about how to do a literature review.

• Planning the Review
• The Research Question
• Choosing Where to Search
• Organizing the Review
• Writing the Review

A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it relates to your research question. A literature review goes beyond a description or summary of the literature you have read. 

• Sage Research Methods Core Collection This link opens in a new window SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. SAGE Research Methods is the ultimate methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher. – Publisher

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What is a literature review? [with examples]

What is a literature review?

The purpose of a literature review, how to write a literature review, the format of a literature review, general formatting rules, the length of a literature review, literature review examples, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, related articles.

A literature review is an assessment of the sources in a chosen topic of research.

In a literature review, you’re expected to report on the existing scholarly conversation, without adding new contributions.

If you are currently writing one, you've come to the right place. In the following paragraphs, we will explain:

• the objective of a literature review
• how to write a literature review
• the basic format of a literature review

Tip: It’s not always mandatory to add a literature review in a paper. Theses and dissertations often include them, whereas research papers may not. Make sure to consult with your instructor for exact requirements.

The four main objectives of a literature review are:

• Studying the references of your research area
• Summarizing the main arguments
• Identifying current gaps, stances, and issues
• Presenting all of the above in a text

Ultimately, the main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

The format of a literature review is fairly standard. It includes an:

• introduction that briefly introduces the main topic
• body that includes the main discussion of the key arguments
• conclusion that highlights the gaps and issues of the literature

➡️ Take a look at our guide on how to write a literature review to learn more about how to structure a literature review.

First of all, a literature review should have its own labeled section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature can be found, and you should label this section as “Literature Review.”

➡️ For more information on writing a thesis, visit our guide on how to structure a thesis .

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, it will be short.

Take a look at these three theses featuring great literature reviews:

• School-Based Speech-Language Pathologist's Perceptions of Sensory Food Aversions in Children [ PDF , see page 20]
• Who's Writing What We Read: Authorship in Criminological Research [ PDF , see page 4]
• A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Online Instructors of Theological Reflection at Christian Institutions Accredited by the Association of Theological Schools [ PDF , see page 56]

Literature reviews are most commonly found in theses and dissertations. However, you find them in research papers as well.

There is no set amount of words for a literature review, so the length depends on the research. If you are working with a large amount of sources, then it will be long. If your paper does not depend entirely on references, then it will be short.

No. A literature review should have its own independent section. You should indicate clearly in the table of contents where the literature review can be found, and label this section as “Literature Review.”

The main goal of a literature review is to provide the researcher with sufficient knowledge about the topic in question so that they can eventually make an intervention.

• UConn Library
• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: How to Pick a Topic >>
• Last Updated: Sep 21, 2022 2:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/literaturereview

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What is a Literature Review? How to Write It (with Examples)

A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process. 

Table of Contents

• What is the purpose of literature review? 
• a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction: 
• b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes: 
• c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs: 
• d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts: 

How to write a good literature review 

• Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question: 
• Decide on the Scope of Your Review: 
• Select Databases for Searches: 
• Conduct Searches and Keep Track: 
• Review the Literature: 
• Organize and Write Your Literature Review: 
• How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal? 
• Frequently asked questions 

What is a literature review?

A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.

What is the purpose of literature review?

A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2  

1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge. 

2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field. 

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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research. 

4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered. 

5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research. 

6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature. 

Literature review example

Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic. 

Literature Review on Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity:

Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies: 

a. Habitat Loss and Species Extinction:

Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements. 

b. Range Shifts and Phenological Changes:

Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources. 

c. Ocean Acidification and Coral Reefs:

The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. 

d. Adaptive Strategies and Conservation Efforts:

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning. 

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Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements. 

Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review. 

• Opening Statement: Begin with a general statement about the broader topic and its significance in the field. 
• Scope and Purpose: Clearly define the scope of your literature review. Explain the specific research question or objective you aim to address. 
• Organizational Framework: Briefly outline the structure of your literature review, indicating how you will categorize and discuss the existing research. 
• Significance of the Study: Highlight why your literature review is important and how it contributes to the understanding of the chosen topic. 
• Thesis Statement: Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument or perspective you will develop in the body of the literature review. 

Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria. 

• Organize by Theme or Concept: Group studies that share common themes, concepts, or methodologies. Discuss each theme or concept in detail, summarizing key findings and identifying gaps or areas of disagreement. 
• Critical Analysis: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Discuss the methodologies used, the quality of evidence, and the overall contribution of each work to the understanding of the topic. 
• Synthesis of Findings: Synthesize the information from different studies to highlight trends, patterns, or areas of consensus in the literature. 
• Identification of Gaps: Discuss any gaps or limitations in the existing research and explain how your review contributes to filling these gaps. 
• Transition between Sections: Provide smooth transitions between different themes or concepts to maintain the flow of your literature review. 

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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research. 

• Summary of Key Findings: Recap the main findings from the literature and restate how they contribute to your research question or objective. 
• Contributions to the Field: Discuss the overall contribution of your literature review to the existing knowledge in the field. 
• Implications and Applications: Explore the practical implications of the findings and suggest how they might impact future research or practice. 
• Recommendations for Future Research: Identify areas that require further investigation and propose potential directions for future research in the field. 
• Final Thoughts: Conclude with a final reflection on the importance of your literature review and its relevance to the broader academic community. 

Conducting a literature review

Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1  

Choose a Topic and Define the Research Question:

• Select a topic that is relevant to your field of study. 
• Clearly define your research question or objective. Determine what specific aspect of the topic do you want to explore? 

Decide on the Scope of Your Review:

• Determine the timeframe for your literature review. Are you focusing on recent developments, or do you want a historical overview? 
• Consider the geographical scope. Is your review global, or are you focusing on a specific region? 
• Define the inclusion and exclusion criteria. What types of sources will you include? Are there specific types of studies or publications you will exclude? 

Select Databases for Searches:

• Identify relevant databases for your field. Examples include PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. 
• Consider searching in library catalogs, institutional repositories, and specialized databases related to your topic. 

Conduct Searches and Keep Track:

• Develop a systematic search strategy using keywords, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and other search techniques. 
• Record and document your search strategy for transparency and replicability. 
• Keep track of the articles, including publication details, abstracts, and links. Use citation management tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley to organize your references. 

Review the Literature:

• Evaluate the relevance and quality of each source. Consider the methodology, sample size, and results of studies. 
• Organize the literature by themes or key concepts. Identify patterns, trends, and gaps in the existing research. 
• Summarize key findings and arguments from each source. Compare and contrast different perspectives. 
• Identify areas where there is a consensus in the literature and where there are conflicting opinions. 
• Provide critical analysis and synthesis of the literature. What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing research? 

Organize and Write Your Literature Review:

• Literature review outline should be based on themes, chronological order, or methodological approaches. 
• Write a clear and coherent narrative that synthesizes the information gathered. 
• Use proper citations for each source and ensure consistency in your citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). 
• Conclude your literature review by summarizing key findings, identifying gaps, and suggesting areas for future research. 

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How to write a literature review faster with Paperpal?

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• Cite with Confidence: Paperpal makes it easy to incorporate relevant citations and references into your writing, ensuring your arguments are well-supported by credible sources. This translates to a polished, well-researched literature review. 

The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.  

Frequently asked questions

A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.

Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.  

Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic. 

Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods. 

Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers.  Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved.  Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic.  Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings.  Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject.  It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.

The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review:  Introduction:   Provide an overview of the topic.  Define the scope and purpose of the literature review.  State the research question or objective.  Body:   Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology.  Critically analyze and evaluate each source.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies.  Highlight any methodological limitations or biases.  Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research.  Conclusion:   Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review.  Highlight the research gap.  Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction.  Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.

Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows: 

References 

• Denney, A. S., & Tewksbury, R. (2013). How to write a literature review.  Journal of criminal justice education ,  24 (2), 218-234. 
• Pan, M. L. (2016).  Preparing literature reviews: Qualitative and quantitative approaches . Taylor & Francis. 
• Cantero, C. (2019). How to write a literature review.  San José State University Writing Center . 

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• University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

• What is a literature review?
• Steps in the Literature Review Process
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
• Librarian Support

What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

• Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
• Explain why this review has taken place;
• Articulate a position or hypothesis;
• Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

• Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
• Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

• Organizes or describes a topic
• Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

• It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
• It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
• It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
• It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy ​

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

• October 26, 2022 recording
• Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 5. The Literature Review
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
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• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
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• Bibliography

A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE: Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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How To Write A Literature Review - A Complete Guide

Table of Contents

A literature review is much more than just another section in your research paper. It forms the very foundation of your research. It is a formal piece of writing where you analyze the existing theoretical framework, principles, and assumptions and use that as a base to shape your approach to the research question.

Curating and drafting a solid literature review section not only lends more credibility to your research paper but also makes your research tighter and better focused. But, writing literature reviews is a difficult task. It requires extensive reading, plus you have to consider market trends and technological and political changes, which tend to change in the blink of an eye.

Now streamline your literature review process with the help of SciSpace Copilot. With this AI research assistant, you can efficiently synthesize and analyze a vast amount of information, identify key themes and trends, and uncover gaps in the existing research. Get real-time explanations, summaries, and answers to your questions for the paper you're reviewing, making navigating and understanding the complex literature landscape easier.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore everything from the definition of a literature review, its appropriate length, various types of literature reviews, and how to write one.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a collation of survey, research, critical evaluation, and assessment of the existing literature in a preferred domain.

Eminent researcher and academic Arlene Fink, in her book Conducting Research Literature Reviews , defines it as the following:

“A literature review surveys books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated.

Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have explored while researching a particular topic, and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within a larger field of study.”

Simply put, a literature review can be defined as a critical discussion of relevant pre-existing research around your research question and carving out a definitive place for your study in the existing body of knowledge. Literature reviews can be presented in multiple ways: a section of an article, the whole research paper itself, or a chapter of your thesis.

A literature review does function as a summary of sources, but it also allows you to analyze further, interpret, and examine the stated theories, methods, viewpoints, and, of course, the gaps in the existing content.

As an author, you can discuss and interpret the research question and its various aspects and debate your adopted methods to support the claim.

What is the purpose of a literature review?

A literature review is meant to help your readers understand the relevance of your research question and where it fits within the existing body of knowledge. As a researcher, you should use it to set the context, build your argument, and establish the need for your study.

What is the importance of a literature review?

The literature review is a critical part of research papers because it helps you:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of your research question and the surrounding area
• Convey that you have a thorough understanding of your research area and are up-to-date with the latest changes and advancements
• Establish how your research is connected or builds on the existing body of knowledge and how it could contribute to further research
• Elaborate on the validity and suitability of your theoretical framework and research methodology
• Identify and highlight gaps and shortcomings in the existing body of knowledge and how things need to change
• Convey to readers how your study is different or how it contributes to the research area

How long should a literature review be?

Ideally, the literature review should take up 15%-40% of the total length of your manuscript. So, if you have a 10,000-word research paper, the minimum word count could be 1500.

Your literature review format depends heavily on the kind of manuscript you are writing — an entire chapter in case of doctoral theses, a part of the introductory section in a research article, to a full-fledged review article that examines the previously published research on a topic.

Another determining factor is the type of research you are doing. The literature review section tends to be longer for secondary research projects than primary research projects.

What are the different types of literature reviews?

All literature reviews are not the same. There are a variety of possible approaches that you can take. It all depends on the type of research you are pursuing.

Here are the different types of literature reviews:

Argumentative review

It is called an argumentative review when you carefully present literature that only supports or counters a specific argument or premise to establish a viewpoint.

Integrative review

It is a type of literature review focused on building a comprehensive understanding of a topic by combining available theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence.

Methodological review

This approach delves into the ''how'' and the ''what" of the research question —  you cannot look at the outcome in isolation; you should also review the methodology used.

Systematic review

This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research and collect, report, and analyze data from the studies included in the review.

Meta-analysis review

Meta-analysis uses statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. By combining information from all relevant studies, meta-analysis can provide more precise estimates of the effects than those derived from the individual studies included within a review.

Historical review

Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, or phenomenon emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and identify future research's likely directions.

Theoretical Review

This form aims to examine the corpus of theory accumulated regarding an issue, concept, theory, and phenomenon. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories exist, the relationships between them, the degree the existing approaches have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested.

Scoping Review

The Scoping Review is often used at the beginning of an article, dissertation, or research proposal. It is conducted before the research to highlight gaps in the existing body of knowledge and explains why the project should be greenlit.

State-of-the-Art Review

The State-of-the-Art review is conducted periodically, focusing on the most recent research. It describes what is currently known, understood, or agreed upon regarding the research topic and highlights where there are still disagreements.

Can you use the first person in a literature review?

When writing literature reviews, you should avoid the usage of first-person pronouns. It means that instead of "I argue that" or "we argue that," the appropriate expression would be "this research paper argues that."

Do you need an abstract for a literature review?

Ideally, yes. It is always good to have a condensed summary that is self-contained and independent of the rest of your review. As for how to draft one, you can follow the same fundamental idea when preparing an abstract for a literature review. It should also include:

• The research topic and your motivation behind selecting it
• A one-sentence thesis statement
• An explanation of the kinds of literature featured in the review
• Summary of what you've learned
• Conclusions you drew from the literature you reviewed
• Potential implications and future scope for research

Here's an example of the abstract of a literature review

Is a literature review written in the past tense?

Yes, the literature review should ideally be written in the past tense. You should not use the present or future tense when writing one. The exceptions are when you have statements describing events that happened earlier than the literature you are reviewing or events that are currently occurring; then, you can use the past perfect or present perfect tenses.

How many sources for a literature review?

There are multiple approaches to deciding how many sources to include in a literature review section. The first approach would be to look level you are at as a researcher. For instance, a doctoral thesis might need 60+ sources. In contrast, you might only need to refer to 5-15 sources at the undergraduate level.

The second approach is based on the kind of literature review you are doing — whether it is merely a chapter of your paper or if it is a self-contained paper in itself. When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. In the second scenario, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

Quick tips on how to write a literature review

To know how to write a literature review, you must clearly understand its impact and role in establishing your work as substantive research material.

You need to follow the below-mentioned steps, to write a literature review:

• Outline the purpose behind the literature review
• Search relevant literature
• Examine and assess the relevant resources
• Discover connections by drawing deep insights from the resources
• Structure planning to write a good literature review

1. Outline and identify the purpose of  a literature review

As a first step on how to write a literature review, you must know what the research question or topic is and what shape you want your literature review to take. Ensure you understand the research topic inside out, or else seek clarifications. You must be able to the answer below questions before you start:

• How many sources do I need to include?
• What kind of sources should I analyze?
• How much should I critically evaluate each source?
• Should I summarize, synthesize or offer a critique of the sources?
• Do I need to include any background information or definitions?

Additionally, you should know that the narrower your research topic is, the swifter it will be for you to restrict the number of sources to be analyzed.

2. Search relevant literature

Dig deeper into search engines to discover what has already been published around your chosen topic. Make sure you thoroughly go through appropriate reference sources like books, reports, journal articles, government docs, and web-based resources.

You must prepare a list of keywords and their different variations. You can start your search from any library’s catalog, provided you are an active member of that institution. The exact keywords can be extended to widen your research over other databases and academic search engines like:

• Google Scholar
• Microsoft Academic
• Science.gov

Besides, it is not advisable to go through every resource word by word. Alternatively, what you can do is you can start by reading the abstract and then decide whether that source is relevant to your research or not.

Additionally, you must spend surplus time assessing the quality and relevance of resources. It would help if you tried preparing a list of citations to ensure that there lies no repetition of authors, publications, or articles in the literature review.

3. Examine and assess the sources

It is nearly impossible for you to go through every detail in the research article. So rather than trying to fetch every detail, you have to analyze and decide which research sources resemble closest and appear relevant to your chosen domain.

While analyzing the sources, you should look to find out answers to questions like:

• What question or problem has the author been describing and debating?
• What is the definition of critical aspects?
• How well the theories, approach, and methodology have been explained?
• Whether the research theory used some conventional or new innovative approach?
• How relevant are the key findings of the work?
• In what ways does it relate to other sources on the same topic?
• What challenges does this research paper pose to the existing theory
• What are the possible contributions or benefits it adds to the subject domain?

Be always mindful that you refer only to credible and authentic resources. It would be best if you always take references from different publications to validate your theory.

Always keep track of important information or data you can present in your literature review right from the beginning. It will help steer your path from any threats of plagiarism and also make it easier to curate an annotated bibliography or reference section.

4. Discover connections

At this stage, you must start deciding on the argument and structure of your literature review. To accomplish this, you must discover and identify the relations and connections between various resources while drafting your abstract.

A few aspects that you should be aware of while writing a literature review include:

• Rise to prominence: Theories and methods that have gained reputation and supporters over time.
• Constant scrutiny: Concepts or theories that repeatedly went under examination.
• Contradictions and conflicts: Theories, both the supporting and the contradictory ones, for the research topic.
• Knowledge gaps: What exactly does it fail to address, and how to bridge them with further research?
• Influential resources: Significant research projects available that have been upheld as milestones or perhaps, something that can modify the current trends

Once you join the dots between various past research works, it will be easier for you to draw a conclusion and identify your contribution to the existing knowledge base.

5. Structure planning to write a good literature review

There exist different ways towards planning and executing the structure of a literature review. The format of a literature review varies and depends upon the length of the research.

Like any other research paper, the literature review format must contain three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The goals and objectives of the research question determine what goes inside these three sections.

Nevertheless, a good literature review can be structured according to the chronological, thematic, methodological, or theoretical framework approach.

Literature review samples

1. Standalone

2. As a section of a research paper

How SciSpace Discover makes literature review a breeze?

SciSpace Discover is a one-stop solution to do an effective literature search and get barrier-free access to scientific knowledge. It is an excellent repository where you can find millions of only peer-reviewed articles and full-text PDF files. Here’s more on how you can use it:

Find the right information

Find what you want quickly and easily with comprehensive search filters that let you narrow down papers according to PDF availability, year of publishing, document type, and affiliated institution. Moreover, you can sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance.

Assess credibility of papers quickly

When doing the literature review, it is critical to establish the quality of your sources. They form the foundation of your research. SciSpace Discover helps you assess the quality of a source by providing an overview of its references, citations, and performance metrics.

Get the complete picture in no time

SciSpace Discover’s personalized suggestion engine helps you stay on course and get the complete picture of the topic from one place. Every time you visit an article page, it provides you links to related papers. Besides that, it helps you understand what’s trending, who are the top authors, and who are the leading publishers on a topic.

Make referring sources super easy

To ensure you don't lose track of your sources, you must start noting down your references when doing the literature review. SciSpace Discover makes this step effortless. Click the 'cite' button on an article page, and you will receive preloaded citation text in multiple styles — all you've to do is copy-paste it into your manuscript.

Final tips on how to write a literature review

A massive chunk of time and effort is required to write a good literature review. But, if you go about it systematically, you'll be able to save a ton of time and build a solid foundation for your research.

We hope this guide has helped you answer several key questions you have about writing literature reviews.

Would you like to explore SciSpace Discover and kick off your literature search right away? You can get started here .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. how to start a literature review.

• What questions do you want to answer?

• What sources do you need to answer these questions?

• What information do these sources contain?

• How can you use this information to answer your questions?

2. What to include in a literature review?

• A brief background of the problem or issue

• What has previously been done to address the problem or issue

• A description of what you will do in your project

• How this study will contribute to research on the subject

3. Why literature review is important?

The literature review is an important part of any research project because it allows the writer to look at previous studies on a topic and determine existing gaps in the literature, as well as what has already been done. It will also help them to choose the most appropriate method for their own study.

4. How to cite a literature review in APA format?

To cite a literature review in APA style, you need to provide the author's name, the title of the article, and the year of publication. For example: Patel, A. B., & Stokes, G. S. (2012). The relationship between personality and intelligence: A meta-analysis of longitudinal research. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(1), 16-21

5. What are the components of a literature review?

• A brief introduction to the topic, including its background and context. The introduction should also include a rationale for why the study is being conducted and what it will accomplish.

• A description of the methodologies used in the study. This can include information about data collection methods, sample size, and statistical analyses.

• A presentation of the findings in an organized format that helps readers follow along with the author's conclusions.

6. What are common errors in writing literature review?

• Not spending enough time to critically evaluate the relevance of resources, observations and conclusions.

• Totally relying on secondary data while ignoring primary data.

• Letting your personal bias seep into your interpretation of existing literature.

• No detailed explanation of the procedure to discover and identify an appropriate literature review.

7. What are the 5 C's of writing literature review?

• Cite - the sources you utilized and referenced in your research.

• Compare - existing arguments, hypotheses, methodologies, and conclusions found in the knowledge base.

• Contrast - the arguments, topics, methodologies, approaches, and disputes that may be found in the literature.

• Critique - the literature and describe the ideas and opinions you find more convincing and why.

• Connect - the various studies you reviewed in your research.

8. How many sources should a literature review have?

When it is just a chapter, sources should equal the total number of pages in your article's body. if it is a self-contained paper in itself, you need at least three times as many sources as there are pages in your work.

9. Can literature review have diagrams?

• To represent an abstract idea or concept

• To explain the steps of a process or procedure

• To help readers understand the relationships between different concepts

10. How old should sources be in a literature review?

Sources for a literature review should be as current as possible or not older than ten years. The only exception to this rule is if you are reviewing a historical topic and need to use older sources.

11. What are the types of literature review?

• Argumentative review

• Integrative review

• Methodological review

• Systematic review

• Meta-analysis review

• Historical review

• Theoretical review

• Scoping review

• State-of-the-Art review

12. Is a literature review mandatory?

Yes. Literature review is a mandatory part of any research project. It is a critical step in the process that allows you to establish the scope of your research, and provide a background for the rest of your work.

But before you go,

• Six Online Tools for Easy Literature Review
• Evaluating literature review: systematic vs. scoping reviews
• Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review
• Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples

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What is a literature review?

A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question.  That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.

A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment.  Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.

Why is it important?

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic.
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area.
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas.
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic.
• Identifies critical gaps and points of disagreement.
• Discusses further research questions that logically come out of the previous studies.

APA7 Style resources

APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question.

Your literature review should be guided by your central research question.  The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor and your class mates.

2. Decide on the scope of your review

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.

Make a list of the databases you will search. 

Where to find databases:

• use the tabs on this guide
• Find other databases in the Nursing Information Resources web page
• More on the Medical Library web page
• ... and more on the Yale University Library web page

4. Conduct your searches to find the evidence. Keep track of your searches.

• Use the key words in your question, as well as synonyms for those words, as terms in your search. Use the database tutorials for help.
• Save the searches in the databases. This saves time when you want to redo, or modify, the searches. It is also helpful to use as a guide is the searches are not finding any useful results.
• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Check with your professor, or a subject expert in the field, if you are missing any key works in the field.
• Ask your librarian for help at any time.
• Use a citation manager, such as EndNote as the repository for your citations. See the EndNote tutorials for help.

Review the literature

Some questions to help you analyze the research:

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions.
• Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited? If so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.
• Create a matrix of the studies for easy analysis, and synthesis, across all of the studies.
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What Is A Literature Review?

A plain-language explainer (with examples).

By:  Derek Jansen (MBA) & Kerryn Warren (PhD) | June 2020 (Updated May 2023)

If you’re faced with writing a dissertation or thesis, chances are you’ve encountered the term “literature review” . If you’re on this page, you’re probably not 100% what the literature review is all about. The good news is that you’ve come to the right place.

Literature Review 101

• What (exactly) is a literature review
• What’s the purpose of the literature review chapter
• How to find high-quality resources
• How to structure your literature review chapter
• Example of an actual literature review

What is a literature review?

The word “literature review” can refer to two related things that are part of the broader literature review process. The first is the task of  reviewing the literature  – i.e. sourcing and reading through the existing research relating to your research topic. The second is the  actual chapter  that you write up in your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s look at each of them:

Reviewing the literature

The first step of any literature review is to hunt down and  read through the existing research  that’s relevant to your research topic. To do this, you’ll use a combination of tools (we’ll discuss some of these later) to find journal articles, books, ebooks, research reports, dissertations, theses and any other credible sources of information that relate to your topic. You’ll then  summarise and catalogue these  for easy reference when you write up your literature review chapter. 

The literature review chapter

The second step of the literature review is to write the actual literature review chapter (this is usually the second chapter in a typical dissertation or thesis structure ). At the simplest level, the literature review chapter is an  overview of the key literature  that’s relevant to your research topic. This chapter should provide a smooth-flowing discussion of what research has already been done, what is known, what is unknown and what is contested in relation to your research topic. So, you can think of it as an  integrated review of the state of knowledge  around your research topic. 

What’s the purpose of a literature review?

The literature review chapter has a few important functions within your dissertation, thesis or research project. Let’s take a look at these:

Purpose #1 – Demonstrate your topic knowledge

The first function of the literature review chapter is, quite simply, to show the reader (or marker) that you  know what you’re talking about . In other words, a good literature review chapter demonstrates that you’ve read the relevant existing research and understand what’s going on – who’s said what, what’s agreed upon, disagreed upon and so on. This needs to be  more than just a summary  of who said what – it needs to integrate the existing research to  show how it all fits together  and what’s missing (which leads us to purpose #2, next). 

Purpose #2 – Reveal the research gap that you’ll fill

The second function of the literature review chapter is to  show what’s currently missing  from the existing research, to lay the foundation for your own research topic. In other words, your literature review chapter needs to show that there are currently “missing pieces” in terms of the bigger puzzle, and that  your study will fill one of those research gaps . By doing this, you are showing that your research topic is original and will help contribute to the body of knowledge. In other words, the literature review helps justify your research topic.  

Purpose #3 – Lay the foundation for your conceptual framework

The third function of the literature review is to form the  basis for a conceptual framework . Not every research topic will necessarily have a conceptual framework, but if your topic does require one, it needs to be rooted in your literature review. 

For example, let’s say your research aims to identify the drivers of a certain outcome – the factors which contribute to burnout in office workers. In this case, you’d likely develop a conceptual framework which details the potential factors (e.g. long hours, excessive stress, etc), as well as the outcome (burnout). Those factors would need to emerge from the literature review chapter – they can’t just come from your gut! 

So, in this case, the literature review chapter would uncover each of the potential factors (based on previous studies about burnout), which would then be modelled into a framework. 

Purpose #4 – To inform your methodology

The fourth function of the literature review is to  inform the choice of methodology  for your own research. As we’ve  discussed on the Grad Coach blog , your choice of methodology will be heavily influenced by your research aims, objectives and questions . Given that you’ll be reviewing studies covering a topic close to yours, it makes sense that you could learn a lot from their (well-considered) methodologies.

So, when you’re reviewing the literature, you’ll need to  pay close attention to the research design , methodology and methods used in similar studies, and use these to inform your methodology. Quite often, you’ll be able to  “borrow” from previous studies . This is especially true for quantitative studies , as you can use previously tried and tested measures and scales. 

How do I find articles for my literature review?

Finding quality journal articles is essential to crafting a rock-solid literature review. As you probably already know, not all research is created equally, and so you need to make sure that your literature review is  built on credible research . 

We could write an entire post on how to find quality literature (actually, we have ), but a good starting point is Google Scholar . Google Scholar is essentially the academic equivalent of Google, using Google’s powerful search capabilities to find relevant journal articles and reports. It certainly doesn’t cover every possible resource, but it’s a very useful way to get started on your literature review journey, as it will very quickly give you a good indication of what the  most popular pieces of research  are in your field.

One downside of Google Scholar is that it’s merely a search engine – that is, it lists the articles, but oftentimes  it doesn’t host the articles . So you’ll often hit a paywall when clicking through to journal websites. 

Thankfully, your university should provide you with access to their library, so you can find the article titles using Google Scholar and then search for them by name in your university’s online library. Your university may also provide you with access to  ResearchGate , which is another great source for existing research. 

Remember, the correct search keywords will be super important to get the right information from the start. So, pay close attention to the keywords used in the journal articles you read and use those keywords to search for more articles. If you can’t find a spoon in the kitchen, you haven’t looked in the right drawer. 

Need a helping hand?

How should I structure my literature review?

Unfortunately, there’s no generic universal answer for this one. The structure of your literature review will depend largely on your topic area and your research aims and objectives.

You could potentially structure your literature review chapter according to theme, group, variables , chronologically or per concepts in your field of research. We explain the main approaches to structuring your literature review here . You can also download a copy of our free literature review template to help you establish an initial structure.

In general, it’s also a good idea to start wide (i.e. the big-picture-level) and then narrow down, ending your literature review close to your research questions . However, there’s no universal one “right way” to structure your literature review. The most important thing is not to discuss your sources one after the other like a list – as we touched on earlier, your literature review needs to synthesise the research , not summarise it .

Ultimately, you need to craft your literature review so that it conveys the most important information effectively – it needs to tell a logical story in a digestible way. It’s no use starting off with highly technical terms and then only explaining what these terms mean later. Always assume your reader is not a subject matter expert and hold their hand through a journe y of the literature while keeping the functions of the literature review chapter (which we discussed earlier) front of mind.

Example of a literature review

In the video below, we walk you through a high-quality literature review from a dissertation that earned full distinction. This will give you a clearer view of what a strong literature review looks like in practice and hopefully provide some inspiration for your own. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve (hopefully) answered the question, “ what is a literature review? “. We’ve also considered the purpose and functions of the literature review, as well as how to find literature and how to structure the literature review chapter. If you’re keen to learn more, check out the literature review section of the Grad Coach blog , as well as our detailed video post covering how to write a literature review . 

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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16 Comments

Thanks for this review. It narrates what’s not been taught as tutors are always in a early to finish their classes.

Thanks for the kind words, Becky. Good luck with your literature review 🙂

This website is amazing, it really helps break everything down. Thank you, I would have been lost without it.

This is review is amazing. I benefited from it a lot and hope others visiting this website will benefit too.

Timothy T. Chol [email protected]

Thank you very much for the guiding in literature review I learn and benefited a lot this make my journey smooth I’ll recommend this site to my friends

This was so useful. Thank you so much.

Hi, Concept was explained nicely by both of you. Thanks a lot for sharing it. It will surely help research scholars to start their Research Journey.

The review is really helpful to me especially during this period of covid-19 pandemic when most universities in my country only offer online classes. Great stuff

Great Brief Explanation, thanks

So helpful to me as a student

GradCoach is a fantastic site with brilliant and modern minds behind it.. I spent weeks decoding the substantial academic Jargon and grounding my initial steps on the research process, which could be shortened to a couple of days through the Gradcoach. Thanks again!

This is an amazing talk. I paved way for myself as a researcher. Thank you GradCoach!

Well-presented overview of the literature!

This was brilliant. So clear. Thank you

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How to Write Review of Related Literature (RRL) in Research

A review of related literature (a.k.a RRL in research) is a comprehensive review of the existing literature pertaining to a specific topic or research question. An effective review provides the reader with an organized analysis and synthesis of the existing knowledge about a subject. With the increasing amount of new information being disseminated every day, conducting a review of related literature is becoming more difficult and the purpose of review of related literature is clearer than ever.  

All new knowledge is necessarily based on previously known information, and every new scientific study must be conducted and reported in the context of previous studies. This makes a review of related literature essential for research, and although it may be tedious work at times , most researchers will complete many such reviews of varying depths during their career. So, why exactly is a review of related literature important?    

Table of Contents

Why a review of related literature in research is important  

Before thinking how to do reviews of related literature , it is necessary to understand its importance. Although the purpose of a review of related literature varies depending on the discipline and how it will be used, its importance is never in question. Here are some ways in which a review can be crucial.  

• Identify gaps in the knowledge – This is the primary purpose of a review of related literature (often called RRL in research ). To create new knowledge, you must first determine what knowledge may be missing. This also helps to identify the scope of your study.  
• Avoid duplication of research efforts – Not only will a review of related literature indicate gaps in the existing research, but it will also lead you away from duplicating research that has already been done and thus save precious resources.  
• Provide an overview of disparate and interdisciplinary research areas – Researchers cannot possibly know everything related to their disciplines. Therefore, it is very helpful to have access to a review of related literature already written and published.  
• Highlight researcher’s familiarity with their topic 1  – A strong review of related literature in a study strengthens readers’ confidence in that study and that researcher.

Tips on how to write a review of related literature in research

Given that you will probably need to produce a number of these at some point, here are a few general tips on how to write an effective review of related literature 2 .

• Define your topic, audience, and purpose: You will be spending a lot of time with this review, so choose a topic that is interesting to you. While deciding what to write in a review of related literature , think about who you expect to read the review – researchers in your discipline, other scientists, the general public – and tailor the language to the audience. Also, think about the purpose of your review of related literature .  
• Conduct a comprehensive literature search: While writing your review of related literature , emphasize more recent works but don’t forget to include some older publications as well. Cast a wide net, as you may find some interesting and relevant literature in unexpected databases or library corners. Don’t forget to search for recent conference papers.
• Review the identified articles and take notes: It is a good idea to take notes in a way such that individual items in your notes can be moved around when you organize them. For example, index cards are great tools for this. Write each individual idea on a separate card along with the source. The cards can then be easily grouped and organized.  
• Determine how to organize your review: A review of related literature should not be merely a listing of descriptions. It should be organized by some criterion, such as chronologically or thematically.  
• Be critical and objective: Don’t just report the findings of other studies in your review of related literature . Challenge the methodology, find errors in the analysis, question the conclusions. Use what you find to improve your research. However, do not insert your opinions into the review of related literature. Remain objective and open-minded.  
• Structure your review logically: Guide the reader through the information. The structure will depend on the function of the review of related literature. Creating an outline prior to writing the RRL in research is a good way to ensure the presented information flows well.  

As you read more extensively in your discipline, you will notice that the review of related literature appears in various forms in different places. For example, when you read an article about an experimental study, you will typically see a literature review or a RRL in research , in the introduction that includes brief descriptions of similar studies. In longer research studies and dissertations, especially in the social sciences, the review of related literature will typically be a separate chapter and include more information on methodologies and theory building. In addition, stand-alone review articles will be published that are extremely useful to researchers.  

The review of relevant literature or often abbreviated as, RRL in research , is an important communication tool that can be used in many forms for many purposes. It is a tool that all researchers should befriend.  

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center. Literature Reviews.  https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/literature-reviews/  [Accessed September 8, 2022]
• Pautasso M. Ten simple rules for writing a literature review. PLoS Comput Biol. 2013, 9. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003149.

Q:  Is research complete without a review of related literature?

A research project is usually considered incomplete without a proper review of related literature. The review of related literature is a crucial component of any research project as it provides context for the research question, identifies gaps in existing literature, and ensures novelty by avoiding duplication. It also helps inform research design and supports arguments, highlights the significance of a study, and demonstrates your knowledge an expertise.

Q: What is difference between RRL and RRS?

The key difference between an RRL and an RRS lies in their focus and scope. An RRL or review of related literature examines a broad range of literature, including theoretical frameworks, concepts, and empirical studies, to establish the context and significance of the research topic. On the other hand, an RRS or review of research studies specifically focuses on analyzing and summarizing previous research studies within a specific research domain to gain insights into methodologies, findings, and gaps in the existing body of knowledge. While there may be some overlap between the two, they serve distinct purposes and cover different aspects of the research process.

Q: Does review of related literature improve accuracy and validity of research?

Yes, a comprehensive review of related literature (RRL) plays a vital role in improving the accuracy and validity of research. It helps authors gain a deeper understanding and offers different perspectives on the research topic. RRL can help you identify research gaps, dictate the selection of appropriate research methodologies, enhance theoretical frameworks, avoid biases and errors, and even provide support for research design and interpretation. By building upon and critically engaging with existing related literature, researchers can ensure their work is rigorous, reliable, and contributes meaningfully to their field of study.

R Discovery is a literature search and research reading platform that accelerates your research discovery journey by keeping you updated on the latest, most relevant scholarly content. With 250M+ research articles sourced from trusted aggregators like CrossRef, Unpaywall, PubMed, PubMed Central, Open Alex and top publishing houses like Springer Nature, JAMA, IOP, Taylor & Francis, NEJM, BMJ, Karger, SAGE, Emerald Publishing and more, R Discovery puts a world of research at your fingertips.  

Try R Discovery Prime FREE for 1 week or upgrade at just US$72 a year to access premium features that let you listen to research on the go, read in your language, collaborate with peers, auto sync with reference managers, and much more. Choose a simpler, smarter way to find and read research – Download the app and start your free 7-day trial today !  

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Research Effectively: Tips on How to Review Related Literature

• Peer Review

Professors across various disciplines require their students to write literature reviews. This article provides pertinent information on how to review related literature effectively.

Updated on December 1, 2021

Professors across various disciplines require their students to write literature reviews, which are collections of authoritative sources on particular topics. They are an essential part of research, because it provides a handy guide to more information on their subjects.

This article provides pertinent information on how to review related literature effectively. By learning these techniques, you may improve your teaching skills and become more effective at grant writing.

Before you start writing, keep in mind that you may need a good management cloud service to store all your files when reviewing your related literature. And once you're done writing your research paper, you may want to promote it using different SEO strategies .

Tips on How to Review Related Literature Effectively

Evaluate the resources.

Make sure to constantly evaluate the sources that your students have incorporated into their literature review. Also, verify whether the resources contain valuable and pertinent information regarding their chosen topic.

Evaluating the resources is particularly vital when an academic library does not collect the sources your students have retrieved.

Web resources may be easily accessible. However, students and professors alike must be more careful to ensure that the sources gathered are reliable.

Below are five essential criteria to help you evaluate information from any resource:

Evaluation Criteria

1. accuracy.

The information from the sources your students gathered must be error-free to ensure its reliability. Furthermore, the details must be based on proven facts. To help you check whether the information is factual or not, you may need to verify it against other authoritative sources.

2. Authority

Check the authors' backgrounds. Authors of scholarly journals must have the qualifications to write on a specific topic. In addition, they must be affiliated with an established organization or a reputable university in the subject field.

3. Objectivity

Carefully examine the intended purpose of the information. It must be based on facts and not merely opinions. Thus, the details in the study must be impartial.

4. Currency

It's also necessary to check the currency of the sources. Are the pieces of information still current, or are they outdated? A good rule of thumb is to utilize sources published in the past ten years for research papers in the humanities, history, arts, and literature.

For fast-paced fields like the sciences, resources published in the past two to three years are a good benchmark since they are more current. Thus, they reflect the newest discoveries, best practices, theories, and processes.

5. Coverage

Make sure to verify whether you or your students' resources have met your information needs. After reading their output, ask yourself if the material they used gave in-depth coverage or just basic information.

Know the Ideal Types of Periodicals for Literature Reviews

Scholarly journals.

A literature review is composed of various scholarly works. Aside from theses and dissertations, academic journals are essential resources that your students can incorporate in their literature reviews.

The authors of scholarly journals are scholars, researchers, and subject experts. The findings in the academic paper are based on in-depth analysis and stated methodology.

Most of the time, the authors use discipline-specific terminology and jargon that may be difficult to comprehend.

Scholarly journals also have references cited in footnotes or bibliographies. The frequency of their publication may be quarterly, monthly, or annually. Some advertise, but many do not.

Trade Magazines

Trade magazines are authored by paid staff with subject expertise and are members of a particular industry.

Their content is about trends, current news, products, and developments in specific fields. Like scholarly journals, authors of trade magazines also use industry-specific jargon. However, peer reviewers don't assess the quality of trade magazines. In addition, these periodicals also have several advertisements that are usually industry related.

Trade magazines may have valuable information. Still, it's best to use scholarly journals in literature reviews. With academic journals, you can be surer of the quality of the paper since they're peer-reviewed.

Popular Magazines and Newspapers

These are non-authoritative sources. Paid staff, who are often non-experts, write these types of periodicals. They're composed heavily of advertisements and are published daily, weekly, or monthly. These could be useful in literature reviews, but also keep in mind that they may be viewed as less credible, because they're often written by non-experts. [Ed1]

Evaluate Different Websites

The internet is a vast network of unfiltered sources, which means anyone can put anything in it, bypassing any form of editorial or peer review. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that you evaluate the web sources you and your students use before including them in your scholarly publication.

Always look for the authors' information. Check the links that read “About this site” and “Who we are.” In addition, verify whether the webmaster provides contact information so that you can contact them with inquiries.

Lastly, look for hints on authority in the internet address (URL).

• .com is a commercial site
• .gov is a government agency or department
• .net is a network provider
• .org is a non-profit organization that may either be biased or unbiased
• .edu is an educational institution

Writing a literature review aims to convey what knowledge has been established on a particular topic, as well as the strengths and weaknesses[Ed2] of the information out there among the resources.

Knowing the essential information on how to review related literature is beneficial to you and your students.

Being aware of these techniques may help you alleviate your students' anxiety about literature reviews and solidify your status as an excellent teacher.

After you've found written your research paper from reliable sources, consider letting our team PhD editors go over your research paper with our Premium English Editing service .

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• Lit Review Prep Use this template to help you evaluate your sources, create article summaries for an annotated bibliography, and a synthesis matrix for your lit review outline.

Synthesize your Information

Synthesize: combine separate elements to form a whole.

Synthesis Matrix

A synthesis matrix helps you record the main points of each source and document how sources relate to each other.

After summarizing and evaluating your sources, arrange them in a matrix or use a citation manager to help you see how they relate to each other and apply to each of your themes or variables.  

By arranging your sources by theme or variable, you can see how your sources relate to each other, and can start thinking about how you weave them together to create a narrative.

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The Role of Magnesium in Sleep Health: a Systematic Review of Available Literature

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Community Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Science, Food Security Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
• 2 Department of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Science, Food Security Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
• 3 Food Security Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Hezar Jarib St., 8174673461, Isfahan, Iran. [email protected].
• PMID: 35184264
• DOI: 10.1007/s12011-022-03162-1

To date, no study has critically reviewed the current literature on the association between magnesium (Mg) and sleep health. Therefore, we carried out a systematic review to assess the association between Mg and sleep patterns in adults' population through observational and interventional studies. We searched for relevant studies through PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed ), Scopus ( http://www.scopus.com ), and ISI Web of Science ( http://www.webofscience.com ) from the earliest available date until November 2021. Eligibility criteria for study selection were guided by the following components identified using the PI(E)CO (Population, Intervention (Exposure), Comparison, Outcome) framework: P (adult population), I(E) (high dietary intake or supplementation of Mg), C (low dietary intake of Mg or placebo group), and O (sleep pattern including sleep duration, sleep-onset latency, night awakenings, sleep stages, and sleep phases). The present study involved 7,582 subjects from 9 published cross-sectional, cohort, and RCT systematically reviewed the possible links between Mg and sleep quality (daytime falling asleep, sleepiness, snoring, and sleep duration) in an adult population. Observational studies suggested an association between Mg statuses and sleep quality, while the RCTs reported contradictory findings. This systematic review revealed an association between magnesium status and sleep quality (daytime falling asleep, sleepiness, snoring, and sleep duration) according to the observational studies, while the randomized clinical trials showed an uncertain association between magnesium supplementation and sleep disorders. The association between dietary magnesium and sleep patterns needs well-designed randomized clinical trials with a larger sample size and longer follow-up time (more than 12 weeks) to further clarify the relationship.

Keywords: Magnesium; Nutrition; Sleep pattern; Sleep quality.

© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

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• DOI: 10.1080/14479338.2024.2363255
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Identification of impeding factors in utilising prefabrication during lifecycle of construction projects: an extensive literature review.

1. Introduction

1.1. an overview of prefabrication in construction, 1.2. significance of the research direction, 1.3. purpose and scope of literature review, 2. literature review, 2.1. definition and types of prefabrication, 2.2. advantages of prefabrication in construction, 2.3. importance of lifecycle analysis, 2.4. motivation for adopting prefabrication, 2.5. hindrances of utilising prefabrication.

• The intricacies involved in managing stakeholders.

2.6. External Environment of Using Modular Constructions

2.7. the gap analysis of previous research, 3. research methodology, 3.1. research flow and search strategies, 3.2. inclusion and exclusion criteria for studies, 3.3. information extraction and analysis process, 4. research findings, 5. discussion, 6. conclusions, author contributions, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Zhou, Z.; Syamsunur, D.; Wang, L.; Nugraheni, F. Identification of Impeding Factors in Utilising Prefabrication during Lifecycle of Construction Projects: An Extensive Literature Review. Buildings 2024 , 14 , 1764. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14061764

Zhou Z, Syamsunur D, Wang L, Nugraheni F. Identification of Impeding Factors in Utilising Prefabrication during Lifecycle of Construction Projects: An Extensive Literature Review. Buildings . 2024; 14(6):1764. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14061764

Zhou, Zhenquan, Deprizon Syamsunur, Lanxin Wang, and Fitri Nugraheni. 2024. "Identification of Impeding Factors in Utilising Prefabrication during Lifecycle of Construction Projects: An Extensive Literature Review" Buildings 14, no. 6: 1764. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14061764

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• Published: 01 December 2022

The psychological impact, risk factors and coping strategies to COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers in the sub-Saharan Africa: a narrative review of existing literature

• Freddy Wathum Drinkwater Oyat 1 ,
• Johnson Nyeko Oloya 1 , 2 ,
• Pamela Atim 1 , 3 ,
• Eric Nzirakaindi Ikoona 4 ,
• Judith Aloyo 1 , 5 &
• David Lagoro Kitara   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7282-5026 1 , 6 , 7  

BMC Psychology volume  10 , Article number:  284 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the physical and mental health of the general population worldwide, with healthcare workers at particular risk. The pandemic's effect on healthcare workers' mental well-being has been characterized by depression, anxiety, work-related stress, sleep disturbances, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Hence, protecting the mental well-being of healthcare workers (HCWs) is a considerable priority. This review aimed to determine risk factors for adverse mental health outcomes and protective or coping measures to mitigate the harmful effects of the COVID-19 crisis among HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa.

We performed a literature search using PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, and Embase for relevant materials. We obtained all articles published between March 2020 and April 2022 relevant to the subject of review and met pre-defined eligibility criteria. We selected 23 articles for initial screening and included 12 in the final review.

A total of 5,323 participants in twelve studies, predominantly from Ethiopia (eight studies), one from Uganda, Cameroon, Mali, and Togo, fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Investigators found 16.3–71.9% of HCWs with depressive symptoms, 21.9–73.5% with anxiety symptoms, 15.5–63.7% experienced work-related stress symptoms, 12.4–77% experienced sleep disturbances, and 51.6–56.8% reported PTSD symptoms. Healthcare workers, working in emergency, intensive care units, pharmacies, and laboratories were at higher risk of adverse mental health impacts. HCWs had deep fear, anxious and stressed with the high transmission rate of the virus, high death rates, and lived in fear of infecting themselves and families. Other sources of fear and work-related stress were the lack of PPEs, availability of treatment and vaccines to protect themselves against the virus. HCWs faced stigma, abuse, financial problems, and lack of support from employers and communities.

The prevalence of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and PTSD in HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic has been high. Several organizational, community, and work-related challenges and interventions were identified, including improvement of workplace infrastructures, adoption of correct and shared infection control measures, provision of PPEs, social support, and implementation of resilience training programs. Setting up permanent multidisciplinary mental health teams at regional and national levels to deal with mental health and providing psychological support to HCWs, supported with long-term surveillance, are recommended.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

When coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in March 2020, healthcare workers (HCWs) globally and in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) were unprepared for the scale of the physical and mental health devastation that was to follow [ 1 ]. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers has been profound, characterized by death, disability, and untenable burden on mental health and well-being [ 2 ]. Factors impacting their mental health include high risks of exposure and infection, financial insecurity, separation from loved ones, stigma, difficult triage decisions, stressful work environment, scarcity of supplies including personal protective equipment (PPEs), exhaustion, traumatic experiences due to regular witnessing of deaths among patients and colleagues [ 2 , 3 ]. Greenberg et al. [ 4 ] observed that the COVID-19 pandemic put healthcare professionals worldwide in an unprecedented situation, making difficult decisions to provide care for many severely ill patients with constrained or inadequate resources.

In almost all WHO regions, data indicates that infection rates among healthcare workers are higher than in the general population [ 5 ]. Scholars suggest that the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet in sight. Neither are they sure about the virulence of the following variant when it appears as caseloads are still rising, with more than 621 million infections and 6.5 million deaths reported worldwide by 19th October 2022 [ 6 ]; mainly driven by the newer omicron variants. However, recently in October 2022, we received with gratitude a reassuring message from US President Biden declaring the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States of America.

Meanwhile, previous studies found high levels of depression, anxiety, and PTSD in survivors among the general population and healthcare workers (HCWs) one-to-three years after the control of the SARS epidemic [ 7 ] and the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa [ 8 ]. In addition, recent surveys [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], reviews, and meta-analyses [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] are pointing to early evidence that a considerable proportion of healthcare workers have experienced stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising concerns about risks to their long-term mental health.

Studies from the global north countries [ 19 , 20 ], UK [ 21 ], USA [ 22 ], and in India [ 23 ], and China [ 24 , 25 ] have shed light on the vulnerability that characterizes frontline healthcare workers during this pandemic, especially regarding their mental health and well-being. However, evidence in sub-Saharan Africa is scanty, and the pattern and prevalence of psychological disorders are not well understood.

Evidence from a systematic review by Pappa S et al. on 33,062 Chinese HCWs in April 2020 found a pooled prevalence rate of mental health problems among respondents; anxiety 23.2%, depression 22.8%, and insomnia 38.9% [ 26 ]. Similarly, Singapore study, Tan et al . [ 27 ], Li et al . [ 28 ], BMA [ 29 ] and in China [ 31 ] found high levels of psychological disorders among health workers.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we found one systematic review involving 919 frontline HCWs, 3928 general HCWs, and 2979 medical students conducted in Africa from December 2019 to April 2020 [ 31 ]. The study by Chen J et al . reported a high prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among frontline HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at 45%, 51%, and 28%, respectively. In comparison, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and insomnia among the general population was much lower at 30%, 31%, and 24%, respectively [ 31 ]. Furthermore, we found that only a few studies investigated protective and coping measures, given the many uncertainties surrounding the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 32 ]. Adequate data are needed to equip frontline HCWs and healthcare managers in sub-Saharan Africa to mitigate the medium and long-term adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 33 ].

This review aimed to answer three questions (1) What is the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HCWs in Sub-Saharan Africa?

(2) What are the associated risk factors during the COVID-19 pandemic?

(3) What interventions (mitigating and coping strategies) protect and support the mental health and well-being of HCWs during the ongoing crises and after the pandemic?

Methodology

Search methodology and article selection.

This current article is a mixed-method narrative review of existing literature on mental health disorders, risk factors, and interventions relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic on HCWs in sub-Saharan. A search on the PubMed electronic database was undertaken using the search terms "novel coronavirus", "COVID-19", "nCoV", "mental health", "psychiatry", "psychology", "anxiety", "depression" and "stress" in various permutations and combinations.

Search processes

We conducted a comprehensive literature search on original articles published from March 2020 to 30 April 2022 in electronic databases of Embase, PubMed, Google Scholar, and the daily updated WHO COVID-19 database. Our search terms included but were not limited to ('COVID-19'/exp OR COVID-19 OR 'coronavirus'/exp OR coronavirus) AND ('psychological'/exp OR psychological OR 'mental'/exp OR mental OR 'stress'/exp OR stress OR 'anxiety' OR anxiety OR 'depression' OR depression OR 'post-traumatic' OR 'post-traumatic'/exp OR 'trauma' OR 'trauma'/exp) OR Health care workers, medical workers of health care professionals, sub-Saharan Africa, for Embase. ("COVID-19" [All Fields] OR "coronavirus" [All Fields]) AND ("Stress, Psychological" [Mesh] OR "mental" OR "anxiety" OR "depression" OR "stress" OR "post-traumatic" OR "trauma") for PubMed, for the WHO COVID-19 database, and ("COVID-19" OR "coronavirus") AND ("Psychological" OR "mental" OR "anxiety" OR "depression" OR "stress" OR "post-traumatic" OR "trauma") for Google Scholar. On reviewing the above citations, twelve articles met the inclusion criteria relevant for this review and are in Table 1 . All twelve articles were cross-sectional, with one qualitative and the others quantitative observational studies.

Eligibility criteria

We included original qualitative and quantitative studies examining the risk factors, psychological impact of COVID-19 and coping strategies of healthcare workers (HCWs) in sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. We excluded studies if they were.

1. Not reported in the English language 2. Studies which were not primary research 3. Studies that had not been published in a peer-reviewed journal 4. Studies that did not include data on HCWs’ mental health or psychological well-being 5. Duplicate studies 6. not using validated instruments to measure the risks and psychological impact.

FWDO performed the search of articles. DLK reviewed the articles involving screening of titles, followed by examination of abstracts. The potential articles identified were further reviewed in full text to examine their eligibility. In addition, four of the authors independently reviewed the full articles to abstract the relevant data required for the review. Thereafter, a meeting to harmonise findings were done and presented in a report.

Data extraction and appraisal of the study

We extracted information from each study, including author, study population, year of publication, country, socio-demographic characteristics, sample size, response rate, gender proportion, age, and study time, areas assessed, the validated instrument used and the prevalence. The appraisal involved assessing the research design, recruitment of respondents, inclusion and exclusion criteria, reliability of outcome determination, statistical analyses, ethical compliance, strengths, limitations, and clinical implications of the articles.

Our review protocol was not registered on PROSPERO because of the significant variation in the methodologies of the articles used in the review. The results precluded using a meta-analytic approach and made a narrative review the most suitable for this work. In addition, we did not use the Cochrane Collaboration GRADE method to assess the quality of evidence of outcomes included in this narrative review. Instead, we used the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) 22 items checklist to gauge the quality of the twelve articles included in this review. We qualitatively validated the articles based on additional considerations namely study design, sample sizes, sampling procedures, response rates, statistical methods used, measures taken by the authors to deal with bias and confounding factors and ethical consideration.

Definition of healthcare worker (HCW)

For this narrative review, we adhered to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) definition of HCWs, which includes physicians, nurses, emergency medical personnel, dental professionals and students, medical and nursing students, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, hospital volunteers, and administrative staff [ 34 ].

Search results

The search found twenty-three studies of interest. Full texts of potentially relevant studies underwent eligibility assessment, and twelve articles met the inclusion criteria for this narrative review.

Study characteristics

The twelve articles comprised eleven quantitative and one qualitative study. The common mental health conditions assessed were depression, anxiety, perceived stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The coping strategy, perceived health status, health distress (including burnout), insomnia, and perceived stigma were also assessed [ 35 , 36 ]. The total number of respondents in these studies was 5,323. The qualitative study had fifty respondents [ 35 ], while the most significant number of participants, 420 was recorded in one of the quantitative studies from Ethiopia [ 37 ]. The questionnaire response rates varied between 90%-100%, with most studies dominated by male respondents at 51.9%-69.2% [ 38 ]. Nurses were the commonest study population, followed by doctors, pharmacists, and laboratory technicians, and no study involved non-HCWs of facilities. Most papers utilized probability sampling procedures, and four quantitative studies used non-random sampling procedures limiting generalizability of their findings and increasing the risk of selection bias. Eight studies were from Ethiopia, and one was from Cameroon, Uganda, Mali, and Togo, respectively (Table 1 ). Most studies were conducted in urban tertiary public hospitals, university teaching hospitals, and rural and urban general hospitals, including primary care facilities operated by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) for example in Mali [ 39 ]. Several validated tools assessed depression, anxiety, insomnia, stress, and PTSD (Table 1 ).

Table 1 provides an overview of the studies selected and validated instruments used to measure psychological disorders.

Table 2 provides comparisons with studies conducted outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

Table 3 provides information on studies showing the classification of psychological outcomes.

Table 4 are studies showing risk factors associated with psychological disorders.

Table 5 are studies that identified protective factors for psychological disorders.

Risks of bias and confounding factors

Most articles selected were cross-sectional studies that employed probability sampling procedures (Table 1 ). Cross-sectional study design minimized selection biases, but many used structured questionnaires, including online self-administered questionnaires, which increased bias due to social desirability. It was not clear how confounding variables were controlled in five papers reviewed [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 43 , 45 ] leading to excessive and perhaps inappropriate determination of associations.

Socio-demographic factors

In this review, the mean age of the respondents ranged between 23 and 35 years, and predominantly males. Age was associated with anxiety, and stress symptoms in 6(50%) of all the studies reviewed [ 35 , 37 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 44 ]. An age of over 40 years was associated with moderate to severe symptoms of PTSD. Two studies concluded that respondents aged over 40 years were more likely to develop PTSD symptoms than their younger counterparts [ 37 , 41 ].

Female gender was significantly associated with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among HCWs in seven studies reviewed [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 41 , 42 , 43 ]. Many studies found that being female, married, and a nurse were independent predictors of stress symptoms. Moreover, sex, age, marital status, type of profession, and working environment were significant factors for PTSD symptoms [ 37 , 41 ]. However, one study in Ethiopia found that the odds of depression were twice higher among male healthcare providers than among female healthcare providers [ 35 ].

Psychological impact on healthcare workers

Most studies reviewed directly assessed the prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, and PTSD in HCWs. Common causes of anxiety, fear, or psychological distress that health professionals reported were: lack of access to PPEs and other equipment, being exposed to COVID-19 at work and taking the infection home to their families, uncertainties that their organization will support/take care of their personal and family needs if they got infection, long working hours, death of colleagues, lack of social support, stigmatization, high rates of transmission and poor income [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. However, the prevalence of mental health symptoms exhibited great variations for example depressive symptoms were examined in nine studies [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ], and varied between 16.3% and 71.9% among HCWs [ 38 , 39 ].

In addition, nine other studies reported high prevalence of anxiety symptoms among HCWs [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ] which varied between 21.9% and 73.5% [ 36 , 39 ]. Five studies investigated HCWs' perceived stress during the pandemic; 15.5%-63.7% of HCWs reported high levels of work-related stress [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 43 , 45 ]. Three studies reported 12.4–77% of HCWs experienced sleep disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 37 , 39 , 40 ].

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was in three studies [ 38 , 41 , 42 ], and the prevalence of PTSD-like symptoms varied between 51.6 and 56.8% in HCWs [ 38 , 41 ]. A qualitative study from Uganda reported high symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD among HCWs [ 35 ]. Additionally, factors that increased the risk of PTSD symptoms were for example, working in emergency units and being frontline workers. Furthermore, many studies found that frontline HCWs had increased symptoms of mental disorders and being a frontline worker was an independent risk factor for depression, anxiety, and PTSD [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ].

Risk factors associated with adverse mental health outcomes

The qualitative study from Uganda reported the factors associated with mental disorder symptoms among HCWs. These were long working hours, lack of equipment (PPEs, testing kits), lack of sleep, exhaustion, high death rates, death of colleagues, and a high COVID-19 transmission rate among HCWs [ 35 ]. Lack of equipment (PPEs, ventilators, and testing kits), overworking, and lack of logistic support were in Ethiopian studies [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 45 ]. Most studies identified several risk factors for adverse mental health outcomes among respondents for example those with medical and mental illnesses, contacts with confirmed COVID-19 patients, and poor social support which were significantly associated with depression [ 42 , 43 ]. Other factors were females, nurses, married, frontline workers, ICU, emergency units, living alone, and lack of social support [ 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Too, participants’ families with chronic illnesses, had contacts with confirmed COVID-19 cases, and poor social support were significantly associated with anxiety. Other risk factors associated with anxiety include exhaustion, long working hours, frontline workers, emergencies, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, married, older, younger, living alone, being female, working at general and referral hospitals, and perceived stigma. In addition, participants’ families with chronic illnesses, those who had contacts with confirmed COVID-19 cases, and those with poor social support were predictors of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 45 ]. Other stress symptoms include having a medical illness, a mental illness, being a frontline worker, married, nurse, female, pharmacist, laboratory technician, physician, older age, lack of standardized PPE supply, low incomes, and living with a family [ 36 , 37 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Healthcare providers with low monthly incomes were significantly more likely to develop stress than those with high monthly incomes [ 38 ]. In addition, participants living alone, living with a family, and being married were associated with symptoms of psychological disorders among HCWs [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 45 ]. Overall, the risk factors for adverse psychological impacts are categorized in three thematic areas (i) occupational, (ii) psychosocial, and (iii) environmental aspects.

Occupational factors

Most studies showed that frontline HCWs, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and laboratory technicians had significantly higher levels of mental health risks compared to non-frontline HCWs [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 45 ]. They experienced higher frequency of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and somatization than non-frontline medical HCWs. In contrast, Mali [ 39 ] and Cameroon [ 46 ] studies found a higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, and PTSD in non-frontline HCWs [ 39 , 46 ]. However, among HCWs, physicians were 20% less likely to develop mental health disorders than nurses, pharmacists, and laboratory technicians [ 39 ]. In addition, healthcare workers with low monthly incomes had higher symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia [ 37 ].

Healthcare groups

Five studies found that being a nurse was associated with worse mental disorders than doctors [ 36 , 37 , 40 , 44 , 45 ].

Frontline staff with direct contact with COVID-19

Most papers in the review found that being in a “frontline” position or having direct contact with COVID-19 patients was associated with higher level of psychological distress [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 45 ]. In addition, studies found that contact with COVID-19 patients was independently associated with an increased risk of sleep disturbances [ 40 , 46 ]. Moreover, HCWs who had contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases were more likely to develop depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms than those who had no contact with COVID-19 patients [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 43 , 45 ].

Lack of personal protective equipment (PPEs)

Most studies reported that the lack of PPEs was associated with higher symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and insomnia, while its availability was associated with fewer mental disorder symptoms [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. In Mali, workers from centres that provided facemasks were 51% less likely to suffer from depression, 62% less likely to develop anxiety, and 45% less likely to develop insomnia [ 39 ]. In Ethiopia, the odds of developing post-traumatic stress disorder were much higher among HCWs who did not receive standardized PPEs supplies than those who had [ 38 , 41 , 42 ]. In Uganda, the lack of PPEs was associated with depression, anxiety, and PTSD [ 35 ].

Heavy workload

Longer working hours, increased work intensity, increased patient load, and exhaustion were risk factors in Ugandan [ 35 ] and Ethiopian studies [ 36 ].

Psychosocial factors: perceived stigma and fear of infection

The fear of infection was in the qualitative study from Uganda [ 35 ], one quantitative study from Cameroon [ 47 ] and seven cross-sectional studies from Ethiopia [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. Poor social support was associated with PTSD symptoms, depression, anxiety, and stress [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 42 , 43 ]. Two studies reported that HCWs with perceived stigmatization were more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, stress, and PTSD [ 37 , 42 ].

family concerns

This came up as one of the main risk factors of stress in almost all studies, especially among those HCWs in direct contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. A family member suffering from COVID-19 was associated with poor mental health outcomes in HCWs [ 36 , 37 ].

Protective psychosocial factors

Two studies suggest a reduction of perceived stigma can be achieved by sensitization of communities about COVID-19 [ 37 , 42 ], and four studies recommend solid social support [ 36 , 37 , 42 , 43 ].

Safety of family

Family safety had the most significant impact in reducing stress. Safety from COVID-19 infection and financial protection of families were essential coping strategies for HCWs [ 35 , 36 ].

Underlying illnesses

We found three studies that reported an underlying medical and mental illness as an independent risk factor for poor psychological outcomes [ 42 , 43 , 45 ].

Protective factors against adverse mental health outcomes

The review identified protective factors to adverse mental health outcomes during COVID-19. The qualitative study from Uganda and four quantitative cross-sectional studies from Ethiopia identified some protective factors [ 35 , 38 , 41 , 42 , 45 ]. The protective factors are grouped under three thematic areas (i) occupational, (ii) psychosocial, and (iii) environmental aspects.

The qualitative study identified many social coping strategies among respondents, including family networks, community networks, help from family, responsibility to society, assistance from community members, availability of assistance from strangers, and the symbiotic nature of assistance in the community [ 35 ].

Protective occupational factors

Studies suggest that physicians suffered fewer mental health disorders partly because of their experience with previous epidemics [ 37 , 42 , 45 ].

Some necessary coping measures include good hospital guidance and ongoing training of frontline HCWs [ 37 , 42 , 45 ].

Adequate supply of PPEs

As mentioned above, PPE was a protective factor when adequate and a risk factor for poor mental health outcomes when deemed inadequate [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 42 , 43 ].

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an ongoing global public health emergency that has burdened healthcare workers' physical and mental well-being (HCWs) [ 1 , 5 ]. Our review confirms the enormous magnitude of mental health impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is widespread, with significant levels of depression, anxiety, distress, and insomnia; especially those working directly with COVID-19 patients at particular risk [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Out of the twelve articles reviewed, eight studies (66%) came from Ethiopia, and this has implications on the results (Table 1 ). This finding indicates few research published to date on the psychological impact of the pandemic on the mental health of HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa; a subregion that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted.

Overview of the study sites

Studies in this review were conducted predominantly in hospital settings. We found only one study relating to primary healthcare workers or facilities [ 38 ]. This finding is of concern, as there is increasing evidence that many non-frontline HCWs continue to suffer psychological symptoms long after the conclusion of infectious disease epidemics [ 7 , 8 ]. In addition, a significant mortality due to COVID-19 was due to excess morbidity, some of which were from primary care facilities. Given that this study is the first narrative review in sub-Saharan Africa, it would be helpful to briefly compare our findings with some published reviews and surveys from other regions (Table 2 ).

High prevalence of psychological disorders among participants

Investigators in this review found 16.3–71.9% HCWs with depressive symptoms, 21.9–73.5% had anxiety symptoms, 15.5–63.7% experienced work-related stress symptoms, 12.4–77% experienced sleep disturbances, and 51.6–56.8% PTSD symptoms [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. This high prevalence of mental health symptoms among HCWs in our review is consistent with previous reviews conducted early in the pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa [ 31 ], Asia [ 17 , 18 , 26 , 28 ], USA & Europe [ 15 , 16 ], and supported by a batch of cross-sectional studies globally [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 19 , 27 , 30 ]. We found mixed results with significant variations within and among regions and countries, as depicted in Tables 1 and 2 .

Risk factors of psychological disorders among participants

Studies established that HCWs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa were exposed to long working hours, overworking, exhaustion, high risk of infection, and shortage of personal protective equipment (Tables 3 and 4 ). In addition, HCWs had deep fear, were anxious and stressed with the high transmission rate of the virus among themselves, high death rates among themselves and their patients, and lived under constant fear of infecting themselves and their families with obvious consequences [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Some HCWs were deeply worried about the lack of standardized PPEs, known treatments and vaccines to protect against the virus. Many health workers had financial problems, lacked support from families and employers if they contracted the virus [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 44 ]. An additional source of fear and anxiety was the perceived stigma attached to being infected with COVID-19 by the public [ 36 , 41 ]. Studies found that HCWs, especially those working in emergency, intensive care units, infectious disease wards, pharmacies, and laboratories, were at higher risk of developing adverse mental health impacts compared to others [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. This is supported by previous reviews [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 26 , 28 ] and cross-sectional studies [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 20 , 21 , 23 , 25 , 30 ]. However, findings were inconsistent on the impact of COVID-19 on frontline health workers, with ten studies [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 44 , 45 ] suggesting they are at higher risk than peers and two studies showing no significant difference in psychological disorders relating to the departments [ 38 , 43 ].

The Mali’s study was conducted exclusively in primary care facilities among HCWs not involved in treating COVID-19 cases but still registered a very high prevalence of depression 71.9%, anxiety 73.6%, and insomnia 77.0% [ 39 ]. In contrast, two studies conducted among HCWs at COVID-19 treatment facilities in Ethiopia [ 36 , 38 ] registered much lower prevalence of depression 20.2%, anxiety 21.0%, and insomnia12.4% [ 36 ], and 16.3%, 30.7% and 15.9% respectively, in the second study [ 38 ]. These findings show that not only frontline HCWs experienced mental health disorders during this pandemic but highlight the need for direct interventions for all HCWs regardless of occupation or workstation during this and future pandemics. The significant disparity in the studies could be due to structural, occupational, and environmental issues for example challenges faced by Mali's healthcare systems, characterized by acute equipment shortages, lack of PPEs, human resources, lack of trained and experienced HCWs, ongoing nationwide insecurity, and terrorism compared to Ethiopia. Therefore, local context needs to be considered as contributing factor to mental health disorders among HCWs.

Regional variations of psychological disorders

Tan et al . found a higher prevalence of anxiety among non-medical HCWs in Singapore [ 27 ]. As previously noted, the prevalence of poor psychological outcomes varied between countries. Compared to sub-Saharan Africa and China, data from India [ 23 ] and Singapore [ 27 ] revealed an overall lower prevalence of anxiety and depression than similar cross-sectional data from sub-Saharan Africa [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ] and China [ 9 , 25 , 30 ]. This finding suggests that different contexts and cultures may reveal different psychological findings and that, it is possible that being at different countries’ outbreak curve may play a part, as there is evidence that it is influential.

Tan et al . suggests that medical HCWs in Singapore had experienced a SARS outbreak and thus were well prepared for COVID-19 psychologically and infection control measures [ 27 ]. What can be deduced is that context and cultural factors play a role, not just the cadre or role of healthcare workers [ 16 ]. It also highlights the importance of reviewing evidence regularly as more data emerge from other countries.

One hospital in Ethiopia found that the thought of resignation was associated with higher chances of mental health disorders and that pharmacists and laboratory technicians who did not receive prior training exhibited higher symptoms of mental health disorders compared to others [ 36 ]. Work shift arrangement, considering a dangerous atmosphere presented by working in COVID-19 wards, was one which exacerbated or relieved mental health symptoms among HCWs, with shorter exposure periods being most beneficial [ 36 ]. Meanwhile, studies found that financial worries caused by severe lockdowns and erratic payment of salaries and allowances were also major stressors [ 35 ]. This finding is like studies in Pakistan [ 13 ] and China [ 30 , 32 ].

In this review, HCWs who had contact with confirmed COVID-19 patients were more affected by depression, anxiety, and stress than their counterparts who had not [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 41 , 43 , 45 ]. This finding is like previous reviews [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 26 , 28 , 31 ] and cross-sectional studies [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 21 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 30 ], which reported higher depression, anxiety, and psychological symptoms of distress in HCWs who were in direct contact with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients.

A study in Pakistan showed that 80% of participants expected the provision of PPE from authority [ 13 ], and 86% were anxious. Some respondents alluded to forced deployment, while in Mali, 73.3% were anxious, with the majority worrying about the shortage of nurses [ 39 ]. Therefore, prospects of being deployed at a workstation where one had not been trained or oriented contributed to fear among health workers. In the sub-Saharan African context, this scenario can best be represented in HCWs involved in internship who must endure hard work during their training. Tan et al . found that junior doctors were more stressed than nurses in Singapore [ 27 ].

Socio-demographic characteristics

Nearly all studies in our review suggest that socio-demographic variables for example age, gender, marital status, and living alone or with families contribute to the high mental disorder symptoms [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 ]. We, the authors suggest that these observations are handled cautiously as several investigators of these reviewed articles did not entirely control the influence of confounding variables. An alternative explanation for this study's findings may be the more significant risks of frontline exposure amongst women and junior HCWs, predominantly employed in lower-status roles, many of whom lacked experience and appropriate training within healthcare system globally. It is also important to note that respondents to all studies, when disaggregated by gender, and age, were predominantly younger or female, which may have impacted the outcomes of these findings [ 16 ]. In addition, the consistently higher mortality rates, and risk of severe COVID-19 disease amongst men would suggest that the complete picture regarding gender and mental health during this pandemic is still incomplete [ 16 ]. Moreover, in several studies, both younger and older age groups were equally affected by mental health symptoms but for different reasons. Cai et al . [ 32 ] in a Chinese study on HCWs for example observed that irrespective of age, colleagues' safety, self and families' safety, the lack of treatment for COVID-19 was a factor that induced stress in HCWs. Similarly, in our review, the lack of PPEs, high infection transmission rates, high death rates among HCWs, and the fear of infecting their families were the factors that induced stress in all HCWs [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ].

We, the authors propose that paying close attention to concerns of HCWs by employers would greatly relieve some stressors and contribute to increased mental well-being of participants. Compared with physicians, our review showed that nurses were more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, and stress [ 35 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 44 , 45 ]. Workloads and night shifts in healthcare facilities, as well as contacts with risky patients, enhanced nurses' mental distress risks [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. In addition, nursing staff have more extended physical contacts and closer interactions with patients than other professionals, providing round-the-clock care required by patients with COVID-19 and thus the increased risk [ 15 ]. On the one hand, we posit that most senior physicians are experienced and always keep well-informed with emerging medical emergencies. The majority become aware of emerging epidemic early and actively protect themselves from infections through regular scientific literature updates compared to their junior counterparts. Senior physicians also spend less time in emergency wards unless there is a need to conduct specific procedures which cannot be undertaken by senior housemen or general medical officers. Cai et al . [ 32 ] concluded that it is essential to have a high level of training and professional experience for healthcare workers engaging in public health emergencies, especially for the new staff. As a result, these findings highlight the importance of focusing on all the frontline HCWs sacrificing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regular monitoring of high-risk groups

There is a need to continue monitoring the high-at-risk groups, including nursing staff, interns, support staff, and all deployed in emergency wards. These high-at-risk groups should be encouraged to undertake screening, treatment, and vaccination to avoid the medium and long-term consequences of such epidemics [ 15 , 16 , 35 , 37 , 40 , 44 ].

Social support and coping mechanisms

The effect of social support and coping measures is in the qualitative study [ 34 ] and three other quantitative studies [ 36 , 41 , 42 ] which concluded that respondents with good social support were less likely to suffer from severe depression, anxiety, work-related stress, and PTSD. The qualitative study identified several coping measures, including community and organizational support, family, and community networks, help from family, responsibility to society, and assistance from community members and strangers, including the symbiotic nature of assistance in the community [ 35 ]. Other measures include providing accommodation and food to employees [ 35 ].

Interestingly, no study examined the association of resilience and self-efficacy with sleep quality, degrees of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and stress. However, a Chinese study by Cai et al. [ 32 ] suggests that the social support given to HCWs causes a reduction in anxiety and stress levels and increases their self-efficacy. In divergence, Xiao et al . [ 46 ] found no relationship between social support and sleep quality.

Only two studies in our review examined the effects of stigma on the mental health of HCWs [ 36 , 41 ] and found that HCWs with perceived stigma were more likely to be depressed, anxious, stressed, and prone to poor sleep quality [ 36 , 41 ]. We, the authors suggest that better community sensitization by creating public awareness involving appropriate local community structures and networks are essential. The broader community in sub-Saharan Africa may have suffered severely from infodemics with severe consequences on their mental health, especially during the difficult lockdowns. In addition, removing discrimination/inequalities at the workplace based on race and other social standings have a powerful influence on the mental health outcomes of HCWs. Also, because emotional exhaustion is long associated with depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances, none of the studies in our review examined burnout as an essential component of mental health disorders in HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Protective and coping measures

In this review we have provided evidence about personal, occupational, and environmental factors that were important protective and coping measures against psychological disorders. Based on these factors we suggest some protective and coping measures which can help to reduce the negative effects of the pandemic on mental health of HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa. Organizations and healthcare managers need to be aware that primary prevention is key to any successful interventions to contain and control any epidemic. This should take the form of planned regular training, orientation and continuing medical education grounded on proven infection control measures. These measures need to be backed up by timely provision of protective equipment, drugs, testing facilities, vaccines, isolation facilities, clinical and mental health support, and personal welfare of HCWs [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 42 , 45 ]. The effect of community and organizational support and coping measures was shown by the qualitative study [ 35 ] and five other quantitative studies [ 36 , 37 , 41 , 42 , 43 ] indicating that respondents who had good social and organizational support were less likely to suffer from severe depression, anxiety, work related stress and PTSD. Prior experience with comparable pandemics and training are suggested as beneficial coping strategies for healthcare workers during this pandemic but also local social structural and geopolitical conditions appear to determine the pattern and evolution of mental health symptoms among HCWs [ 14 , 15 , 31 , 32 , 47 ]. In our case the high prevalence of all mental health symptoms in non-frontline primary health care facilities in Mali [ 39 ] which was already plagued with instability and weak healthcare systems prior to the pandemic is a case in point. Results are particularly consistent in showing that provision of PPEs, testing kits, orientation training of workers, work shift arrangements, provision of online counselling, provision of food and accommodation and prompt payment of allowances by employers were important protective measures [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 ]. The feeling of being protected is associated with higher work motivation with implication for staff turnover [ 35 , 38 , 43 , 45 ]. Hence, physical protective materials [ 14 ], together with frequent provision of information, should be the cornerstone of any interventions to prevent deterioration in mental health of HCWs (Table 5 ). Finally, provision of rest rooms, online consultation with psychologists/psychiatrists, protection from financial hardships, access to social amenities and religious activities are some important coping measures [ 35 , 36 , 38 , 42 , 45 ]. In this era of digital health care with plentiful internet and smartphones, organization can conduct online trainings, online mental health education, online psychological counselling services, and online psychological self-help intervention tailored to the needs of their HCWs [ 35 , 37 , 42 ]. In addition, it is essential to understand and address the sources of anxiety among healthcare professionals during this COVID-19 pandemic, as this has been one of the most experienced mental health symptoms [ 48 ]. Adequate protective equipment provided by health facilities is one of the most important motivational factors for encouraging continuation of work in future outbreaks. Furthermore, availability of strict infection control guidelines, specialized equipment, recognition of their efforts by facility management, government, and reduction in reported cases of COVID-19 provide psychological benefits [ 15 , 32 ]. Finally, we call upon Governments (the largest employers of HCWs) in sub-Saharan Africa to do what it takes to improve investments in the mental health of HCWs and plan proactively in anticipation of managing infectious disease epidemics, including other expected and unexpected disasters.

Future research direction

There was no study that examined the association of resilience and self-efficacy with sleep quality, degrees of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and stress. Although emotional exhaustion has long been associated with depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances, no study in our review examined burnout as an important component of mental health disorders in HCWs in sub-Saharan Africa. The impacts of infodemics, stringent lockdown measures, discrimination/inequalities at workplaces based on race, and other social standings on mental health outcomes of HCWs need to be investigated.

Future studies are needed on the above including other critical areas like suicidality, suicidal ideations, and substance abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, there is a significant variation of related literature calling for more rigorous research in future. More systematic studies will be required to clarify the full impact of the pandemic so that meaningful interventions can be planned and executed at institutional and national levels in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

Limitations of this study

There are some limitations to this study. First, most of the studies are from one country, limiting the generalizability of the results to the whole African continent. Second, all the studies were cross-sectional and only looked at associations and correlations. There is a need for prospective or retrospective cohort or case–control studies on this subject matter. Longitudinal research studies on the prevalence of mental disorders in the COVID-19 pandemic in the sub-Saharan Africa are urgently required. Third, most studies reviewed did not adequately examine protective factors or coping measures of the health workers in their settings. In addition, most studies did not pay strict attention to confounding variables which could have led to inappropriate results and conclusions. Fourth, most sample sizes were small and unlikely representative of the population and yet larger sample sizes would better identify the extent of mental health problems among health workers in the region. Fifth, depression, anxiety, and stress were assessed solely through self-administered questionnaires rather than face-to-face psychiatric interviews. Sixth, these studies employed various instruments and different cut-off thresholds to assess severity. Notably, the magnitude and severity of reported mental health outcomes may vary based on the validity and sensitivity of the measurement tools. Seventh, there was no mention of mental baseline information among the studied population and therefore it was unknown if the studied population had pre-existing mental health illnesses that decompensated during the pandemic crisis. Eight, investigators did not give much attention to stigma, burnout, resilience, and self-efficacy among study participants.

Furthermore, our review did not employ systematic reviews or meta-analyses methods for the information generated. This narrative review paper precluded deeper insight into the quality of reviewed articles for this paper. Still, our observation was that investigators did not consider the strict lockdown measures, quarantine, and isolation imposed by many countries in sub-Saharan Africa as possible risk factors for mental health disorders among HCWs.

Based on the articles reviewed, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and PTSD in HCWs in the sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic is high. We implore health authorities to consider setting up permanent multidisciplinary mental health teams at regional and national levels to deal with mental health issues and provide psychological support to patients and HCWs, always supported with sufficient budgetary allocations.

Long-term surveillance is essential to keep track of insidiously rising mental health crises among community members. There is a significant variation of related literature thus calling for more rigorous research in the future. More systematic studies will be needed to clarify the full impact of the pandemic so that meaningful interventions can be planned better and executed at institutional and national levels in sub-Saharan Africa.

Availability of data and materials

Datasets analysed in the current study are available from the corresponding author at a reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Coronavirus disease 2019

Healthcare workers.

Mental health

Public health emergency

Personal protective equipment

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Acknowledgements

We thank Uganda Medical Association Acholi-branch members for the financial assistance which enabled the team to conduct this study successfully.

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Freddy Wathum Drinkwater Oyat, Johnson Nyeko Oloya, Pamela Atim, Judith Aloyo & David Lagoro Kitara

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ICAP at Columbia University, Freetown, Sierra Leone

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Rhites-N, Acholi, Gulu City, Uganda

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FWDO, JA, JNO, ENI and DLK searched and screened studies and extracted data from selected articles. FWDO wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors reviewed and edited the final draft. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Oyat, F.W.D., Oloya, J.N., Atim, P. et al. The psychological impact, risk factors and coping strategies to COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers in the sub-Saharan Africa: a narrative review of existing literature. BMC Psychol 10 , 284 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00998-z

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Received : 03 September 2022

Accepted : 22 November 2022

Published : 01 December 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00998-z

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