The most apparent difference between an empirical article and a systematic review lies in the purpose of writing. The former presents the outcomes of a particular experiment or survey that has been conducted for answering one or several research questions. Meanwhile, a systematic review analyzes and structures the relevant data from existing empirical studies and “provides a summary of the evidence” (Baker et al, 2017, p. 643). This dissimilarity determines the structural specialties of the two types of articles. The main body of an empirical one involves data analysis, while that of a systematic one describes the strategy of searching the studies to review.
My overall impression of the given empirical article is positive in terms of its informational value. It includes a substantial amount of references to the previous studies, which allows both a theoretical base for the investigation and the data from other locations or periods for comparison. Another reason why I find the article appropriately written is its legibility. The data are organized into tables that are easy to navigate and accompanied by all necessary abbreviation expansions. In addition, the results are presented and discussed in a textual form to avoid misinterpretations.
The empirical article under the review could be consulted for a better understanding of the variables that may determine the efficiency of exposure to psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder. Those factors are the basic demographic, personal, and clinical characteristics of the participants as well as the length of the “exposure to trauma-related memories” (Rosen et al, 2017, p. 63). Analysis of the interdependence between some or all of the parameters and treatment efficacy is one of the ways the article could be utilized as a counselor.
References
Baker, F.A., Metcalf, O., Varker, T., & O’Donnell, M. (2017). A systematic review of the efficacy of creative arts therapies in the treatment of adults with PTSD. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 10(6), 643–651.
Rosen, C. S., Eftekhari, A., Crowley, J. J., Smith, B. N., Kuhn, E., Trent, L.,… Ruzek, J. I. (2017). Maintenance and reach of exposure psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder 18 months after training. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 30, 63–70.