LibGuides: Systematic Reviews: Preparation

Finding previous Systematic Reviews & Protocols

Verify that your question hasn't already been answered
Verify that there are no other review protocols registered with researchers already looking at the same question
Identify related systematic reviews that will need to be accessed so that you can review the reference lists for relevant primary studies.

Cochrane Library Cochrane Reviews are internationally recognized as the highest standard in evidence-based health care and are published online in the Cochrane Library

Campbell Library
The Campbell Collaboration maintains and disseminates systematic reviews in education, crime and justice, social welfare and international development.
PROSPERO

Includes protocol details for systematic reviews relevant to health and social care, welfare, public health, education, crime, justice, and international development, where there is a health related outcome. Systematic review protocols on PROSPERO can include any type of any study design. Reviews of reviews and reviews of methodological issues that contain at least one outcome of direct patient or clinical relevance are also accepted.
PubMed Clinical Queries

This feature is provided to help clinicians locate systematic reviews and similar articles. Search results include a column which displays citations for systematic reviews.
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE)
Contains summaries of systematic reviews which have met strict quality criteria. Each summary also provides a critical commentary on the quality of the review. DARE covers a broad range of health care related topics and can be used for answering questions about the effects of health care interventions, as well as for developing clinical guidelines and policy making.
Epistemonikos
Epistemonikos is a collaborative, multilingual database of health evidence. It is the largest source of systematic reviews relevant for health-decision making, and a large source of other types of scientific evidence. The main aim of Epistemonikos is to gather scientific information (i.e. evidence) that might be relevant for health decision-making, and to provide rapid and reliable access to the best available evidence for real-life questions.
JBI Evidence Synthesis
JBI Evidence Synthesis is an official journal of JBI. It is an international peer-reviewed, online journal that publishes manuscripts encompassing evidence synthesis and health care. JBI Evidence Synthesis seeks to disseminate rigorous, high-quality research that provides the best available evidence to inform policy and practice through the science and conduct of systematic and scoping reviews. The journal publishes systematic and scoping review protocols, diverse types of systematic reviews, and scoping reviews covering multi-disciplinary healthcare-related topics that follow methodology and methods developed by JBI.

Formulate your question

Developing a protocol (plan) for a systematic review outlines the individual processes that need to be undertaken within the review. The first part of this process is formulating a question.

There are several available frameworks for developing including:

PICO = Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome
PECO = Population, Exposure, Comparison, Outcome
PIRT = Population, Index Test, Reference Test, Target Condition
SPIDER = Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research Type

You would choose the appropriate tool for your type of question, in the examples given here – intervention, risk, diagnostic and experiential/qualitative questions.

Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (York)

Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), University of York.

CRD has produced a complete guide to writing up systematic reviews[1]. It covers core principles and methods including how to conduct a review, how to identify studies, the basics of searching databases and formulating search strategies and how to document and report searches. View and download the guide here: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/crd/Systematic_Reviews.pdf

Register your Protocol

Once you've formulated your question, you will need to start developing a protocol to guide the conduct of your review. This will cover inclusion/exclusion criteria, screening methods, risk of bias and data analysis.

It is good practice to prospectively register your protocol and in many cases a requirement for future publication of the review.

Where to register your protocol;

(https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/systematic-reviews/methodology)

Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR)

Standards for the conduct and reporting of new Cochrane Intervention Reviews, reporting of protocols and the planning, conduct and reporting of updates

These MECIR Standards present a guide to the conduct and reporting of Cochrane Intervention Reviews. Each set of Standards includes links to Cochrane Training resources, the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (the Handbook) and other available resources.