Disclaimer: While we are happy to advise on developing systematic review searches, we may not have the capacity to create or perform the search for you.
Establish Eligibility Criteria
- Predefined criteria for including and excluding studies in the review
- May include participants, interventions and comparisons, study design, publication dates, or publication type
- Ensures that all members of the team know what to look for in each study
- Reduces bias in the screening
- Test on a small set of articles to validate criteria prior to screening (interrater reliability)
Make a Detailed Plan
The review protocol sets out the rationale and methods to be used in the review and provides a plan for your work.
The protocol should include:
- Search question or objective
- Inclusion/exclusion criteria (scope including types of studies, participants, interventions)
- Databases to be searched
- Proposed search strategy
- Methods and tools for data extraction and analysis
- Declaration of interests
- Time-frame
Register your Protocol
Consider registering your protocol. Registration helps to promote transparency in the review process and also reduces the potential for duplication.
Many journals require SRs to have registered protocols PRIOR to beginning the screening stage. Check the author guidelines section of prospective journals.
PROSPERO
Use PROSPERO to register systematic review protocols. Note: they will not accept protocols for most other review types.
- PROSPEROPROSPERO is an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care. PROSPERO aims to provide a comprehensive listing of systematic reviews registered at inception to help avoid unplanned duplication and enable comparison of reported review methods with what was planned in the protocol.
- Guidance notes for registering a systematic review protocol with PROSPEROProvides information on registering a review, navigating the registration form, updating the registration, and the process in general.
Open Science Framework (OSF)
Open Science Framework accepts Systematic review protocols and other review protocols including scoping, integrative, and rapid.
- Open Science FrameworkOSF accepts Systematic and other review protocols; including Scoping and Rapid.