Navigate the links below to jump to a specific section of the page:

• Definition
• When is an Umbrella Review methodology appropriate?
• Outline of Stages
• Methods and Guidance
• Examples of Umbrella Reviews
• Supplementary Resources

Booth (2016) states that "essentially an umbrella review is a cluster of existing systematic reviews on a shared topic" (p.37). Umbrella reviews are also known as an overview of reviews. According to Grant & Booth (2009), umbrella reviews are "overarching reviews" that "agreggrat[e] findings from several reviews that address specific questions" (p.103). Moreover, "each umbrella review focuses on a broad condition or problem for which there are two or more potential interventions and highlights reviews that address these potential interventions and their results" (Grant & Booth, 2009, p.103).

Characteristics

• An umbrella review is essentially a single document that includes evidence from a variety of Cochrane reviews.
• An umbrella review can only be accomplished if the intervention of interest has already been discussed in a review.

When to Use It: Umbrella reviews are best suited for topics which are already addressed in systematic and/or meta-analyses. Grant & Booth (2009) state that umbrella reviews are useful for combining the results of various reviews on a certain question. Booth (2016) adds that:

"Typically, the broad topic area will have been 'split' into focused populations and/or interventions. The umbrella review seeks to impose an overall coherence by lumping these precise reviews together. Umbrella reviews are particularly valuable within health technology assessments that aim to consider all management options and yet may commission separate reviews of an individual treatment with specific outcomes" (p.37).

Becker et al. (n.d.) add that as there may be many possible interventions for a specific condition, it is beneficial for decision-makers to save time reviewing individual reviews and rather read an umbrella or overview of reviews that cover all possible interventions. An umbrella review can point at reviews that address different types of interventions.

Timeframe: Approximately 12 months or less.   

*Varies beyond the type of review. Depends on many factors such as but not limited to: resources available, the quantity and quality of the literature, and the expertise or experience of reviewers" (Grant & Booth, 2009).

Question: Overviews are broader in scope but the question is still specific and well-defined, can use PICO to formulate the question. 

Is your review question a complex intervention? Learn more about Reviews of Complex Interventions.

Sources and searches: Only locating the highest level of evidence of published or unpublished:

1. Systematic reviews or
2. Meta-analyses
3. Other types of evidence synthesis that meets inclusion criteria

Only identifies other reviews or evidence syntheses. It may be likely to limit the search from 1990 to current since there were few research syntheses published prior.

Selection: Based upon clear inclusion/exclusion criteria and outcome measures defined a priori. 

Appraisal: Critical Appraisal of systematic reviews done by at least two independent reviewers using the appropriate tool.  

Synthesis: Present outcome data exactly as they appear or re-analyze the outcome data in a different way. 

The following resource provides further support on conducting an umbrella review:

Methods & Conduct

Reporting Guideline

• Anderson, L., & Taylor, R. S. (2014). Cardiac rehabilitation for people with heart disease: an overview of Cochrane systematic reviews. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2014(12), CD011273. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD011273.pub2
• Moore, R. A., Derry, S., Aldington, D., & Wiffen, P. J. (2015). Single dose oral analgesics for acute postoperative pain in adults - an overview of Cochrane reviews. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2015(9), CD008659. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD008659.pub3
• Schultz, T. J., Roupas, P., Wiechula, R., Krause, D., Gravier, S., Tuckett, A., Hines, S., & Kitson, A. (2016). Nutritional interventions for optimizing healthy body composition in older adults in the community: an umbrella review of systematic reviews. JBI database of systematic reviews and implementation reports, 14(8), 257–308. doi: 10.11124/JBISRIR-2016-003063

• McKenzie, J. (Ed). Overviews of Systematic Reviews series. Systematic reviews.
• Aromataris, E., Fernandez, R., Godfrey, C., Holly, C., Khalil, H., & Tungpunkom, P. (2020). Chapter 10: Umbrella Reviews. In Aromataris, E. & Munn, Z. (Eds.), JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. Joanna Briggs Institute. doi: 10.46658/JBIMES-20-12
• Pollock, M., Fernandes, R.M., Becker, L.A., Pieper, D., & Hartling, L. (2021). Chapter V: Overviews of Reviews. In Higgins, J.P.T., Thomas, J., Chandler, J., Cumpston, M., Li, T., Page, M.J., & Welch, V.A. (Eds.), Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (Version 6.2). Cochrane. Available from www.training.cochrane.org/handbook
• Aromataris, E., Fernandez, R., Godfrey, C. M., Holly, C., Khalil, H., & Tungpunkom, P. (2015). Summarizing systematic reviews: methodological development, conduct and reporting of an umbrella review approach. International journal of evidence-based healthcare, 13(3), 132–140. doi: 10.1097/XEB.0000000000000055
• Bastian, H., Glasziou, P., & Chalmers, I. (2010). Seventy-five trials and eleven systematic reviews a day: how will we ever keep up?. PLoS medicine, 7(9), e1000326. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000326
• Becker, L., Thomson, D., & Caldwell, D. (n.d.). Addressing Multiple Treatments I: Cochrane Overviews. https://methods.cochrane.org/sites/methods.cochrane.org.cmi/files/public/uploads/Becker%20-%20Intro%20to%20Overviews%20Keystone.pdf
• Booth, A. (2016). EVIDENT guidance for reviewing the evidence: a compendium of methodological literature and websites. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1562.9842
• Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health information and libraries journal, 26(2), 91–108. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x
• Hartling, L., Chisholm, A., Thomson, D., & Dryden, D. M. (2012). A descriptive analysis of overviews of reviews published between 2000 and 2011. PloS one, 7(11), e49667. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049667
• Li, L., Tian, J., Tian, H., Sun, R., Liu, Y., & Yang, K. (2012). Quality and transparency of overviews of systematic reviews. Journal of evidence-based medicine, 5(3), 166–173. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-5391.2012.01185.x
• Lunny, C., Brennan, S. E., McDonald, S., & McKenzie, J. E. (2016). Evidence map of studies evaluating methods for conducting, interpreting and reporting overviews of systematic reviews of interventions: rationale and design. Systematic reviews, 5, 4. doi: 10.1186/s13643-015-0178-0
• Papatheodorou S. (2019). Umbrella reviews: what they are and why we need them. European journal of epidemiology, 34(6), 543–546. doi: 10.1007/s10654-019-00505-6
• Pieper, D., Buechter, R., Jerinic, P., & Eikermann, M. (2012). Overviews of reviews often have limited rigor: a systematic review. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 65(12), 1267–1273. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2012.06.015
• Smith, V., Devane, D., Begley, C. M., & Clarke, M. (2011). Methodology in conducting a systematic review of systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. BMC medical research methodology, 11(1), 15. doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-11-15