Scoping + Systematic Reviews

What is the Purpose of a Protocol?

Much like a research study protocol, a review protocol is the rationale, hypothesis and planned methods for the review. It is ideally registered before the review begins, to allow for peer review of the methods. This in turn helps to reduce bias in the review when it happens. Protocols are typically developed for systematic and scoping reviews. They are not commonly seen for integrative reviews.

A protocol is also one of the elements of the PRISMA statement checklist. While not every journal requires that a systematic/scoping review have a published protocol, more and more journals are requiring it. Taking the time to register a protocol will you give you extra points when you want to publish your review.

Check out this quick video from Carrie Price on Protocol Guidance

Writing a Review Protocol

Benefits of a Protocol

We covered the basic why of a protocol in the Purpose of a Protocol section, but here are some added benefits:

• To create a good protocol, you have to have thought through the purpose and methods of your search to such an extent that executing those steps should be very smooth.
• Although a protocol probably won't include a data extraction template if you are doing a scoping review, it may include citations of sources that will prep you for creating that template when the time comes.
  
• You have a good portion of your manuscript already written.
  
• You get to cite it in your paper and say you completely followed the PRISMA guidelines checklist.

Elements of a Protocol

Your protocol will serve as a guideline for your entire project. Below is a list of common information that is included in a protocol, taken from the Generalized Systematic Review Registration template above.

• Background: type of review, research question(s), why the review is needed, what stage are you currently in, when you plan on starting/ending
• Methods
  • Search: the databases/interfaces you will search, if you're including grey literature, limits/filters, search strings
  • Screen & Review: fields you will screen (typically title and abstract, but what happens when there isn't an abstract), inclusion/exclusion criteria, how screeners and reviewers will be trained, where you will get full-text, how you'll reach consensus
  • Extraction: the information you will extract, how you will develop your template, instructions for those who are extracting, how you'll reach consensus, how you will finalize the extracted data
• Synthesis & Quality Assessment (for systematic reviews): what do you plan on doing with the data, how will you handle missing data, validate data, assess the quality/bias of included sources, etc.

PRISMA also has a set of Protocol guidelines that you can use.

Example Templates

Where to Submit Your Protocol

Below are a few examples of places that you can register your protocols. You only need to register a protocol once.