Describes in detail the process of preparing and maintaining Cochrane systematic reviews on the effects of healthcare interventions.
Standards for the entire systematic review process, from locating, screening, and selecting studies for the review, to synthesizing the findings (including meta-analysis) and assessing the overall quality of the body of evidence, to producing the final review report.
What are Reporting Guidelines?
A good systematic reviews report their methods carefully. They apply the same care to reporting the findings of the primary studies and assessing their quality. Clear reporting is essential because it gives readers the information to form their own views about how well the review was carried out. It also makes it replicable – one of the defining characteristics of a systematic review.
Team members need to become familiar with PRISMA and its 27-point checklist and flow diagram that shows the progress of information through the review. PRISMA is a valuable tool for reviewers who want to make sure their reporting is transparent and thorough. PRISMA aims to ensure reporting is done clearly and consistently. But perhaps most importantly, it helps to make sure that the most fundamental items of reporting are done at all.
A reporting guideline is a simple, structured tool for health researchers to use while writing manuscripts. A reporting guideline provides a minimum list of information needed to ensure a manuscript can be, for example:
Reporting guidelines are more than just some thoughts about what needs to be in an academic paper. We define a reporting guideline as:
“A checklist, flow diagram, or structured text to guide authors in reporting a specific type of research, developed using explicit methodology.”
Whether presented as structured text or a checklist, a reporting guideline:
Reporting Tools for Systematic Reviews
PRISMA is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in published reviews. The PRISMA checklist guides authors through the development, reporting and publishing of review articles. The checklist states what elements to include in the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and funding sections of a review article. If authors follow the PRISMA checklist, then in their manuscript they can indicate that the review was “conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Statement.”
Who should use PRISMA?
- Authors: PRISMA aims to help authors improve the reporting of literature reviews.
- Journal peer reviewers and editors: PRISMA is useful for critical appraisal of the process and reporting of published reviews.
The 27 item checklist items pertain to the content of a systematic review and meta-analysis, which include the title, abstract, methods, results, discussion and funding.
The checklist includes 16 reporting items related to how the literature searches should be conducted and reported.
Describes how to report a synthesis of quantitative intervention effect data which does not rely on a meta-analysis of standardized effect sizes.
Checklist that describes how to report a synthesis of quantitative intervention effect data without a meta-analysis.
Reporting Guidelines for Other types of Research
The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines.
They provide a list of Reporting Guidelines for various study types.
