Any comprehensive review requires a registered protocol. If you're conducting a narrative or critical review, you won't need one. For any project we're on, we can offer guidance on creating a protocol and registering it.
The PRISMA checklist includes a line item for your protocol, so you must produce one to say your review followed PRISMA guidelines. A protocol will detail your methodology and must follow a separate PRISMA checklist called the PRISMA for Protocols (PRIMSA-P) extension. We require a PRISMA compliant protocol for every project we work on.
The PRISMA-P extension will prevent you from writing a "love letter protocol," where you're simply writing about how important your topic is and not addressing anything related to methodology. Treadwell offers protocol templates (linked below for systematic and scoping reviews) that contain every item on PRISMA-P.
If the project is a systematic or rapid review, register it in PROSPERO. PROSPERO won't accept scoping review protocols. For those, we recommend registering in OSF or Figshare. Here are instructions on how to register.
