Creating a protocol
- background.
- research question and aims.
- criteria for inclusion and exclusion.
- methods including: search strategy. selecting studies for inclusion. quality assessment. data extraction & analysis. synthesis of results. dissemination.
- time frame.
What should be included in a systematic review protocol?
LibGuides: Systematic reviews: Step two: Creating a protocol 
A systematic review protocol contains a comprehensive description of your systematic review, including the rationale, hypothesis and the methods you intend to follow.The Cochrane Collaboration have produced an which you can use to help structure and design your protocol.You have access to this Cochane learning package through the university. If you don’t currently have a Cochrane Interactive Learning account, please create one using the link below:
: LibGuides: Systematic reviews: Step two: Creating a protocol
How do you write a protocol?
The protocol should outline the rationale for the study, its objective, the methodology used and how the data will be managed and analysed. It should highlight how ethical issues have been considered, and, where appropriate, how gender issues are being addressed.
Why write a systematic review protocol?
It allows you to complete a systematic review efficiently and accurately, ensures greater understanding among team members, and makes writing the manuscript far easier. Many journals now require submitted systematic reviews to have registered protocols.
How long does it take to write a systematic review protocol?
Systematic reviews are work and time intensive! Estimates of the average time to conduct a systematic review range from 6-18 months (Source), A study examining the time between when systematic review protocols were registered in PROSPERO and when the systematic reviews were published reported the mean estimated time between registration and publication was 67.3 weeks (Source), 
Isn’t there a faster way? I don’t have that much time! Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are rigorous review methodologies and require a significant amount of time to conduct. If you need to conduct a review in less time, a different review methodology may be more appropriate, such as a:
Traditional narrative review Rapid review
To compare and contrast these methodologies, please read Grant and Booth’s “A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies.” Comparison of rapid review versus systematic review approaches.
What is protocol in a systematic literature review?
What is a protocol? – A systematic review protocol describes the rationale, hypothesis, and planned methods of the review. It should be prepared before a review is started and used as a guide to carry out the review. Detailed protocols should be developed a priori, made publicly available, and registered in a registry such as PROSPERO To find out more about systematic review protocols, click on the links below:
Why protocols? Protocol Guidance Systematic Review registration
What is a qualitative systematic review protocol?
Abstract – This article outlines what a qualitative systematic review is and explores what it can contribute to our understanding of pain. Many of us use evidence of effectiveness for various interventions when working with people in pain. A good systematic review can be invaluable in bringing together research evidence to help inform our practice and help us understand what works.
- In addition to evidence of effectiveness, understanding how people with pain experience both their pain and their care can help us when we are working with them to provide care that meets their needs.
- A rigorous qualitative systematic review can also uncover new understandings, often helping illuminate ‘why’ and can help build theory.
Such a review can answer the question ‘What is it like to have chronic pain?’ This article presents the different stages of meta-ethnography, which is the most common methodology used for qualitative systematic reviews. It presents evidence from four meta-ethnographies relevant to pain to illustrate the types of findings that can emerge from this approach.
It shows how new understandings may emerge and gives an example of chronic musculoskeletal pain being experienced as ‘an adversarial struggle’ across many aspects of the person’s life. This article concludes that evidence from qualitative systematic reviews has its place alongside or integrated with evidence from more quantitative approaches.
Keywords: Qualitative systematic review, meta-ethnography, qualitative synthesis Many of us use evidence of effectiveness for various interventions when working with people in pain. A good systematic review can be invaluable in bringing together research evidence to help inform our practice and help us understand what works.
In addition to evidence of effectiveness, understanding how people with pain experience both their pain and their care can help us when we are working with them to provide care that meets their needs. A high-quality qualitative systematic review can also uncover new understandings, often helping illuminate ‘why’ and can help build theory.
A qualitative systematic review could answer the question ‘What is it like to have chronic non-malignant pain?’ The purpose of this article is to outline what a qualitative systematic review is and explore what it can contribute to our understanding of pain.
A qualitative systematic review brings together research on a topic, systematically searching for research evidence from primary qualitative studies and drawing the findings together. There is a debate over whether the search needs to be exhaustive.1, 2 Methods for systematic reviews of quantitative research are well established and explicit and have been pioneered through the Cochrane Collaboration.
Methods for qualitative systematic reviews have been developed more recently and are still evolving. The Cochrane Collaboration now has a Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group, including a register of protocols, illustrating the recognition of the importance of qualitative research within the Cochrane Collaboration.
In November 2013, an editorial described the Cochrane Collaboration’s first publication of a qualitative systematic review as ‘a new milestone’ for Cochrane.3 Other editorials have raised awareness of qualitative systematic reviews in health.4 Noblit and Hare 5 were pioneers in the area of synthesising qualitative data.
They describe such reviews as aggregated or as interpretative. The aggregated review summarises the data, and Hannes and Pearson 6 provide a worked example of an aggregation approach. Interpretative approaches, as the name suggests, interpret the data, and from that interpretation, new understandings can develop that may lead to development of a theory that helps us to understand or predict behaviour.
- Types of interpretative qualitative systematic reviews include meta-ethnography, critical interpretative synthesis, realist synthesis and narrative synthesis.
- More details about these and other approaches can be found in other papers and books.1, 5, 7 – 11 This article will describe one approach, meta-ethnography, as it was identified as the most frequently used approach, 1 and there are some examples using meta-ethnography that focus on pain.
A meta-ethnographic approach can be used with a variety of qualitative methodologies, not only ethnography. The data for a meta-ethnography are the concepts or themes described by the authors of the primary studies. Noblit and Hare 5 outlined the seven steps of a meta-ethnography: (1) getting started, (2) deciding what is relevant, (3) reading the studies, (4) determining how studies are related to each other, (5) translating studies into each other, (6) synthesising translations and (7) expressing the synthesis.
The first three might seem relatively straightforward, although Lee et al.12 emphasised both the importance and nuances of the reading stage, and Toye et al.13 discuss the complexities of making quality assessments of qualitative papers and searching for this type of study. You need to understand what data to extract from the papers and how you are going to do this.
You have to first identify what is a concept and what is purely descriptive. Toye et al.2 describe a process for collaboratively identifying concepts. In determining how studies are related to each other and translating them into each other, the meta-ethnographer compares the concepts found in each study with each other and then groups similar concepts into conceptual themes.
Translating studies into each other involves looking at where concepts between studies agree (reciprocal synthesis) and where they do not agree (refutational synthesis). Developing conceptual categories can be challenging as you need to judge the extent to which a concept from one study adequately reflects concepts from other studies and choose one that seems to fit best.
This is discussed in more detail in Toye et al.2, 13 To synthesise the translation, a line of argument is then developed from the conceptual categories. How the concepts group and relate to each other are developed. This provides an overall interpretation of the findings, ensuring this is grounded in the data from the primary studies.
You are aiming to explain, and new concepts and understandings may emerge, which can then go on to underpin development of theory. For example, a qualitative systematic review that explored medicine taking found that ‘resistance’ was a new concept, revealed through meta-ethnography, and this helped understanding of lay responses to medicine taking.1 Hannes and Macaitis, 14 in a review of published papers, reported that over time, authors have become more transparent about searching and critical appraisal, but that the synthesis element of reviews is often not well described.
Being transparent about decisions that are interpretative has its own challenges. Working collaboratively to challenge interpretations and assumptions can be helpful.2, 12 The next section will use examples of qualitative systematic reviews from the pain field to illuminate what this type of review can contribute to our understanding of pain.
Can you publish a systematic review protocol?
Publishing a protocol is not mandatory if you are writing a review, but it is increasingly considered best practice. The PRISMA statement includes a checklist to support the development of protocols and you may wish to consider publishing a protocol on one of the sites listed below.
What is an example of a protocol?
Protocols: It is a set of rules that need to be followed by the communicating parties in order to have successful and reliable data communication. For example – Ethernet and HTTP.
What are few examples of protocol?
protocol, in computer science, a set of rules or procedures for transmitting data between electronic devices, such as computers, In order for computers to exchange information, there must be a preexisting agreement as to how the information will be structured and how each side will send and receive it.
Without a protocol, a transmitting computer, for example, could be sending its data in 8- bit packets while the receiving computer might expect the data in 16-bit packets. Protocols are established by international or industrywide organizations. Perhaps the most important computer protocol is OSI ( Open Systems Interconnection ), a set of guidelines for implementing networking communications between computers.
Among the most important sets of Internet protocols are TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), HTTPS (Secure HyperText Transmission Protocol), SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), and DNS (Domain Name System). The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Erik Gregersen,
What is a PRISMA protocol?
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) is a 27-item checklist used to improve transparency in systematic reviews. These items cover all aspects of the manuscript, including title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and funding.
What is a protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis?
CONCLUSION – A protocol is an important document that specifies the research plan for a systematic review or meta-analysis. It should be written in detail and researchers should aim to publish their study protocols. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement provides a useful checklist on what should be included in a systematic review,
What is the difference between a protocol and a systematic review?
A protocol is a description of your proposed systematic review, including your proposed methods, the rationale for the review, and steps you will take to eliminate bias while conducting the review.
How many papers are needed for a systematic review?
A systematic review can include 0 or more studies, depending on the serving purpose, the question, and the available resources to answer the review question.
Can you publish a systematic review protocol?
Publishing a protocol is not mandatory if you are writing a review, but it is increasingly considered best practice. The PRISMA statement includes a checklist to support the development of protocols and you may wish to consider publishing a protocol on one of the sites listed below.
What is a Prisma protocol?
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) is a 27-item checklist used to improve transparency in systematic reviews. These items cover all aspects of the manuscript, including title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and funding.