Systematic reviews are important in the medical field. They are used to summarize and evaluate multiple studies on a single topic, ultimately giving doctors and other healthcare providers with more information to make clinical decisions. However, not all systematic reviews were created equally. In order for a systematic review to be effective and well-rounded, it must follow certain guidelines and procedures. Here we will take you through 7 steps that should go into developing protocols in systematic reviews!
Step 1 – Familiarize yourself with the PRISMA.
The first step in developing protocols is familiarizing yourself with the PRISMA. The PRISMA is used to create a checklist of items that should be addressed when conducting a systematic review in your PhD dissertation. If you’re not familiar with PRISMA and afraid to lose marks, then get help from PhD dissertation writing services. It includes sections on study identification procedures, data collection processes, and study appraisal methods. This checklist helps ensure that all relevant studies have been included within the review, and that their selection process was not biased.
One way to become familiar with PRISMA is by reading through it once before starting your protocol development time period. Once you have done so, follow along as we explain some key points here:
- How do I choose my keywords?
- What information should I include in my title and abstract?
- How do I format my reference list?
Step 2 – Defining Your Objective.
In order to develop protocols in systematic reviews, you need to think about the overall objective of your review. For example, if you just want to find out whether a specific intervention works or not, then this is a simple objective and you can use one of our recommended search strategies (e.g., Cochrane Collaboration). However, if your main question is “what are the best ways for midwives to assist women during childbirth?” then it’s more complex and will require some thought about how exactly you plan on answering this question.
You also need to consider what the purpose of your protocol is before moving on – whether that’s designing a new piece of equipment or helping healthcare professionals make informed decisions based on evidence.
Step 3 – Define Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.
Protocols in systematic reviews are a list of rules for collecting, analyzing, and presenting data.
In this step, you need to define your inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria are the requirements that studies must meet in order to be included in your review (e.g., all trials had to have been conducted in humans). Exclusion criteria are the requirements that studies must not meet in order to be included in your review (e.g., studies were excluded if they were not randomized).
Including only relevant information from published research means you will get less bias than if you include everything published out there about the topic because some of it may be irrelevant or misleading!
Step 4 – Select Your Sources of Information.
In this step of developing protocols in systematic reviews, you will need to select the appropriate databases for your systematic review. An important strategy in this process is to define your search criteria and identify the most relevant databases.
Once you have defined the scope of your review and identified appropriate keywords, synonyms and subject headings, you will be ready to set up a search strategy. Searching through thousands of sources is made easier by using a combination of search engines that include:
- The Cochrane (NHS EED).
- MEDLINE.
- EMBASE.
Using these sources can help identify high-quality studies that meet all inclusion criteria for your systematic review.
Step 5 – Systematically Search for Literature in Various Sources of Information.
The process of searching for literature is a systematic one. You need to search in multiple places. For example, you can use a search engine to search for articles, databases to search for articles and online libraries to search for articles. Additionally, you can also use an online journal if required.
Step 6 – Data Extraction and Analysis.
- Data extracting: Information about the following is extracted from the study:
- Participants: The number of participants included in the study and how they were selected. This information should be noted alongside other details about the participants, such as age and gender if appropriate.
- Interventions: The specific intervention(s) used in each arm of any comparisons (e.g., comparison between treatment A versus B). If there are multiple interventions being tested at once, it is important to distinguish between them. For example, if one arm has an educational module while another uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), these should be clearly differentiated so that you can properly compare them later on during data analysis.
- Data analysis: At this stage, you will use quantitative data to answer your research question(s) or hypothesis(es). This may involve a statistical test or simply looking at trends across groups over time or within group comparisons (such as pre-post change scores). If conducting meta-analyses, then there will be additional steps required for gathering and synthesizing evidence across studies before conducting statistical tests; however, these steps are beyond our scope here so we will focus on analyzing individual studies instead!
Step 7 – Report Your Findings.
In this section, you will report your findings in a concise, clear, and logical way. The following elements should be included:
- Results of the search (including number of records identified, reasons for not including studies, etc.)
- Study selection process and data extraction (for example what was included in terms of study design and characteristics)
The results section should include any limitations of the study. This could include how many papers were excluded from analysis due to not meeting inclusion criteria or how many papers were read but not used for analysis due to being irrelevant or not being suitable for this review. Additional information that may be relevant to readers is also important as it helps them understand why certain decisions were made during systematic reviews such as why certain studies were excluded from assessment.
Conclusion
The systematic review is a vital part of medical research. It allows researchers to determine what is most effective in treating certain diseases and conditions, which helps doctors make better decisions when prescribing medication or other treatments for their patients. This information can also be used by policymakers who want to improve the health care system by making changes based on evidence-based findings rather than guesswork or opinion. However, without proper protocols in systematic reviews, there will be no way for the researcher(s) conducting this type of study to have enough assurance that all aspects have been covered adequately so that their conclusions are based entirely off objective data collected through various sources (literature reviews).