Why you should register your protocol
"Prospective registration of systematic reviews promotes transparency, helps reduce potential for bias and serves to avoid unintended duplication of reviews. Registration offers advantages to many stakeholders in return for modest additional effort from the researchers registering their reviews.” (Stewart L, Moher D, Shekelle P. Why prospective registration of systematic reviews makes sense.Syst Rev. 2012 Feb 9;1:7. doi: 10.1186/2046-4053-1-7. PMID: 22588008)
CWML Protocol Requirement
A completed protocol helps the librarian team member understand the scope of the review; it clarifies the research/clinical question, aids in the development of the concept table (identifying relevant concepts, definitions of key concepts, the logic underlying concept relationships). By examining the explicit inclusion/exclusion criteria, the librarian can make adjustments in the search strategy or make recommendations as to when the search strategy cannot accommodate concepts that are difficult to articulate in the research question.
Because these projects require a great deal of time on our part, we view the finished protocol as an indication of the team’s high degree of commitment to complete the review.
As of May 2018, we need to analyze the completed protocol before we begin our final searches.
Suggested Protocol Registries
Process Manuals and Guidelines
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Finding What Works in Health Care by Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.ISBN: 9780309164269Publication Date: 2011-06-20
Preparation
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Cochrane Interactive LearningThis module series helps users gain a more in-depth understanding of the process of conducting a systematic review. Make sure you are connected to the VPN before registering for a free account.
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Systematic Review ToolboxThe Systematic Review Toolbox is a community-driven, searchable, web-based catalogue of tools that support the systematic review process across multiple domains.
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Systematic Searches Tutorial SeriesThis series of eleven tutorials cover the fundamental concepts and general procedure of searching the health science literature in a systematic manner. The goal of these tutorials is to ensure that your search is comprehensive, methodical, transparent and reproducible, so that your conclusions are as unbiased and closer to truth as possible.
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Yale MeSH AnalyzerA MeSH analysis grid can help identify the problems in your search strategy by presenting the ways articles are indexed in the MEDLINE database in an easy-to-scan tabular format.
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An Introduction to Systematic Reviews by This timely, engaging book provides an overview of the nature, logic, diversity and process of undertaking systematic reviews as part of evidence informed decision making. A focused, accessible and technically up-to-date book, it covers the full breadth of approaches to reviews from statistical meta analysis to meta ethnography. It is ideal for anyone undertaking their own systematic review - providing all the necessary conceptual and technical background needed to make a good start on the process. The content is divided into five clear sections: * Approaches to reviewing * Getting started * Gathering and describing research * Appraising and synthesising data * Making use of reviews/models of research use. Easy to read and logically structured, this book is essential reading for anyone doing systematic reviews. David Gough is Professor of Evidence Informed Policy and Practice and Director of SSRU and its EPPI-Centre and Co-Editor of the journal Evidence & Policy. Sandy Oliver is Professor of Public Policy and Deputy Director of SSRU and its EPPI-Centre. James Thomas is Reader in Social Policy, Assistant Director of SSRU and Associate Direcctor of the EPPI-Centre.ISBN: 9781849201803Publication Date: 2012-04-04 -
Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis by When used in tandem, systematic reviews and meta-analysis-- two distinct but highly compatible approaches to research synthesis-- form a powerful, scientific approach to analyzing previous studies. But to see their full potential, a social work researcher must be versed in the foundationalprocesses underlying them. This pocket guide to Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis illuminates precisely that practical groundwork.In clear, step-by-step terms, the authors explain how to format topics, locate and screen studies, extract and assess data, pool effect sizes, determine bias, and interpret the results, showing readers how to combine reviewing and meta-analysis correctly and effectively. Each chapter containsvivid social work examples and concludes with a concise summary and notes on further reading, while the book's glossary and handy checklists and sample search and data extraction forms maximize the boo'ks usefulness.Highlighting the concepts necessary to understand, critique, and conduct research synthesis, this brief and highly readable introduction is a terrific resource for students and researchers alike.ISBN: 9780195326543Publication Date: 2008-02-13 -
The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis by Praise for the first edition: "The Handbook is a comprehensive treatment of literature synthesis and provides practical advice for anyone deep in the throes of, just teetering on the brink of, or attempting to decipher a meta-analysis. Given the expanding application and importance of literature synthesis, understanding both its strengths and weaknesses is essential for its practitioners and consumers. This volume is a good beginning for those who wish to gain that understanding." --Chance "Meta-analysis, as the statistical analysis of a large collection of results from individual studies is called, has now achieved a status of respectability in medicine. This respectability, when combined with the slight hint of mystique that sometimes surrounds meta-analysis, ensures that results of studies that use it are treated with the respect they deserve....The Handbook of Research Synthesis is one of the most important publications in this subject both as a definitive reference book and a practical manual."--British Medical Journal When the first edition of The Handbook of Research Synthesis was published in 1994, it quickly became the definitive reference for researchers conducting meta-analyses of existing research in both the social and biological sciences. In this fully revised second edition, editors Harris Cooper, Larry Hedges, and Jeff Valentine present updated versions of the Handbook's classic chapters, as well as entirely new sections reporting on the most recent, cutting-edge developments in the field. Research synthesis is the practice of systematically distilling and integrating data from a variety of sources in order to draw more reliable conclusions about a given question or topic. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis draws upon years of groundbreaking advances that have transformed research synthesis from a narrative craft into an important scientific process in its own right. Cooper, Hedges, and Valentine have assembled leading authorities in the field to guide the reader through every stage of the research synthesis process--problem formulation, literature search and evaluation, statistical integration, and report preparation. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis incorporates state-of-the-art techniques from all quantitative synthesis traditions. Distilling a vast technical literature and many informal sources, the Handbook provides a portfolio of the most effective solutions to the problems of quantitative data integration. Among the statistical issues addressed by the authors are the synthesis of non-independent data sets, fixed and random effects methods, the performance of sensitivity analyses and model assessments, and the problem of missing data. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis also provides a rich treatment of the non-statistical aspects of research synthesis. Topics include searching the literature, and developing schemes for gathering information from study reports. Those engaged in research synthesis will also find useful advice on how tables, graphs, and narration can be used to provide the most meaningful communication of the results of research synthesis. In addition, the editors address the potentials and limitations of research synthesis, and its future directions. The past decade has been a period of enormous growth in the field of research synthesis. The second edition Handbook thoroughly revises original chapters to assure that the volume remains the most authoritative source of information for researchers undertaking meta-analysis today. In response to the increasing use of research synthesis in the formation of public policy, the second edition includes a new chapter on both the strengths and limitations of research synthesis in policy debatesISBN: 9781610441384Publication Date: 2009-02-05
Screening
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CovidenceCovidence is a web-based program licensed by Yale that allows research teams to manage their bibliographic data, PDFs, forms for risk of bias, and data extraction. Reviewers can do title and abstract screening with very little fuss. Contact your librarian to have a Covidence review set up for your team.
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EndNoteEndNote is a commercial citation management software package. It is a commercial program that Yale licenses for the members of its community.
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DistillerSRDistillerSR systematic review software manages, tracks, and streamlines the screening, data extraction, and reporting processes of your systematic reviews and literature reviews. Resource is not free.
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RevMan 5RevMan facilitates preparation of protocols and full reviews, including text, characteristics of studies, comparison tables, and study data. It can perform meta-analysis of the data entered, and present the results graphically. You are allowed to use RevMan free of charge to prepare Cochrane Reviews or for purely academic use.
Quality Assessment Instruments
This is not a comprehensive list