Selecting Guidelines
You Need (at least) Two!
There are two main types of guideline/standards documents for evidence synthesis projects:
You may also want to use a protocol template.
These guidelines are developed by research organizations for specific fields and types of review articles. Select the methodology and reporting guidelines that best match your project.
Methods Guidelines
Structure Reviews
There are no specific guidelines for structured reviews. A structured review adapts the process and guidelines of other review types for situations where resources or goals do not match the methodological expectations of the other review types.
Identify and review the methods guidelines for the review type (systematic or scoping) that best matches the structure you want to follow.
Additionally, some of these resources may be useful:
Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review by Call Number: LB1047.3 .B66 2022ISBN: 9781529711851Publication Date: 2022-03-01Multiple editions available. Check the CSU catalog.
Systematic Review
Cochrane produces the premier guidelines for systematic reviews in the health sciences. However, their guidelines are very dense.
It is useful to start by looking at the Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR), which breaks the guidelines down into a table starting on page 10. MECIR tables provide links back into the guidelines at the relevant section.
- Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR)This companion document for the Cochrane Handbook is structured as a table of the standards, their level of importance and rational, and links to the relevant section in the Cochrane Handbook. It links methods to reporting standards for Cochrane.
Scoping Review
The main methods guidelines for scoping reviews is Chapter 11 of the JBI Evidence Synthesis manual. However, there are some excellent further documents from JBI to support and explain the process.
Reporting Guidelines
PRISMA & PRISMA Extensions
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) are the most commonly used reporting guidelines. The PRISMA checklist and explanatory statements tell you what to write into the final manuscript in order to report the project transparently.
However, there are "extensions" that apply to specific review types or processes. Select all that apply!
PRISMA (Systematic Reviews)
Start with the PRISMA 2020 Checklist & use the Explanation and Elaboration (E&E) document to understand it and get examples of how to write each section.
- PRISMA - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-AnalysesThe premier guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and other evidence synthesis are the PRISMA guidelines.
PRISMA-ScR (Scoping Reviews)
Start with the Checklist & use the explanation and elaborations in the appendix of the statement to understand it and get examples of how to write each section.
- PRISMA - Scoping ReviewsAn extension of the PRISMA guidelines for reporting of scoping reviews.
The explanations and examples can be found in the appendix of the Statement paper
PRISMA-P (Protocols)
NOTE: PRISMA-P is aligned to the systematic review process. For scoping reviews, use it along side the JBI recommendations for Scoping Review Protocols provided below.
Look at the Checklist & use the Explanation and Elaboration (E&E) document to understand it and get examples of how to write each section.
- PRISMA - ProtocolAn extension of the PRISMA guidelines specifically for reporting in the protocol for a systematic review.
PRISMA-S (Search Design reporting)
Look at the Checklist & use the Explanation and Elaboration (E&E) document to understand it and get examples of how to write each section.
- PRISMA - SearchingAn extension of the PRISMA guidelines specifically for reporting the search process transparently.
- PRISMA-S: an extension to the PRISMA Statement for Reporting Literature Searches in Systematic ReviewsPart 3 has the explanations and elaboration for the checklist.
Library Help
Connect with library staff via chat, email, phone or text.