Page 445 - e-Book

Study screening and selection

A stepwise procedure in the form of a flowchart diagram of literature searches and inclusion
and exclusion method of the articles is presented in Fig. 1. For this purpose, the title, abstract,

and main body of the article of interest were studied, evaluated and selected based on certain
defined criteria.

Inclusion criteria
The articles to be included in the review must meet all the inclusion criteria which were: 1)

Reviews, research articles, and book chapters only on walnut, 2) the formulations/key

ingredients of plant extracts used against various diseases and ailments were reported and
included in the present study to finalize the walnut plant that are extensively used in such

herbal formulations, 3) research articles that are only focused on the in vitro studies and

phytochemical analysis, 4) the articles published only in English journals and containing the
maximum relevant information.

Exclusion criteria
The exclusion criteria of the data for this study were well-defined as 1) Duplicates was

excluded, 2) Article not relevant to the topic, 3) Articles having not clear results, 4) Articles
having not sufficient data.

Ethnomedicinal survey

An ethnomedicinal survey had been conducted in Ramban and other district areas which are
major production areas of walnut. Some open-end and semi-structured interviews were

carried out to document the traditional knowledge and uses of walnut by medicine men and
local peoples of these areas .

Results
According to the above-mentioned search strategy and selection criteria, firstly, 650 search

results were identified via electronic databases and reviewed based on the title and abstract.

After the screening of relevant records by title and abstract, we just removed unsuitable and
identical articles. 455 articles did not meet the set inclusion criteria so that was excluded and

finally 195 articles selected as they met all set inclusion criteria and containing the maximum

relevant information. The complete information on the various parameters like morphology,
ethnomedicinal uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology are studied. Field surveys and semi-

structured interviews were carried to elicit secret traditional knowledge from locals inhabiting
and herbalists in accessible areas of the regions in J&K UT. Appropriate methodology was

followed during the present study usually the survey in each locality started with the
interviews of elderly and experienced members of locality, herbalists and medicine men.

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