This guide was adapted from Cornell University's Guide to Evidence Synthesis, the University of Minnesota's Systematic Review and Evidence Synthesis, and Northwestern University's Evidence Synthesis & Systematic Reviews.
A protocol is a written outline of your evidence synthesis project developed prior to conducting your review. Members of the team use the protocol as a guide to conduct the research.
There are several commonly used protocol templates/checklists you can use to help you develop your protocol. Many of these are also associated with a protocol registry.
Best practice for evidence synthesis projects is to register or publish your protocol prior to conducting your review. This improves transparency, reduces bias, and ensures that other research teams do not duplicate your efforts. Several commonly-used registries are listed below.
Formulating a clear, well-defined research question takes time, and you may go through several versions before settling on the right question. Developing a research question is not always a straightforward process. You and your team have identified a knowledge gap in your field; now you should search the literature to see if this review has already been done. If the answer is no, then you can further explore the literature related to your question. Look for other reviews and literature that has been written on this topic. Use the literature you find to refine your question to narrow the focus and make it specific.
A question framework provides support and structure for your evidence synthesis question. Using a research question framework, or concept developer, will help you structure your question appropriately.
| Population, Patient, or Problem |
Who are the people being studied or What is the problem being examined? What are their characteristics? |
| Intervention | What is the treatment or intervention being studied? |
| Comparison, Control, or Comparator |
What is the intervention compared to? This can be optional if no comparison applies |
| Outcome | What are the relevant outcomes and how are they measured? |
There are also variants of PICO which include Context, Study type, Time, or Patient values and preferences.
| Population | Important characteristics of participants, including age and other qualifying criteria |
| Concept | Use the ideas from your primary questions to determine your concept. The core concept examined by the scoping review should be clearly articulated to guide the scope and breadth of the inquiry. This may include details that pertain to elements that would be detailed in a standard systematic review, such as the "interventions" and/or "phenomena of interest" and/or "outcomes." |
| Context | May include cultural factors such as geographic location and/or specific racial or gender-based interests. In some cases, context may also encompass details about the specific setting. |
Source:
Aromataris E, Lockwood C, Porritt K, Pilla B, Jordan Z, editors. JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. JBI; 2024.
|
Setting |
Where is the study being undertaken? |
| Perspective | For whom? Who are the targets or participants of the study? |
| Intervention | What is the change or intervention being studied? |
| Comparison | What is the intervention being compared to? |
| Evaluation | With what result? How is the result being measured? |
There are many more frameworks than the three detailed here. The University of Maryland Libraries has a table of frameworks to explore other methodolodies.
