My standing recommendation for Inquiry Projects is to consider conducting a systematic review on a topic of interest, which dually serves as preparation for future work and collaboration beyond the project scope. Benefits of a systematic review are that it can be largely self-paced, collaborative, publishable in a peer-reviewed journal and there is medical librarian support available for medical school projects via the health system Library Services team (links below).

Samples of published systematic reviews in other domains are attached. For Systematic Reviews as work products, up to two (2) students can share project/program credit. In addition to the Inquiry Research Mentor collaboration, additional students can partner for authorship credit, with an informal recommendation to cap student author collaborations a total of 3-4 (e.g., 1-2 for project/program credit and 1-2 not for project/program credit).

If it’s helpful to meet for questions or advising, I’m available to meet for office hours. If scheduling time for office hours, it’s the most helpful to send background information on the data or interest areas a few days prior to meeting to allow for pre-review.

PROSPERO: Systematic review registration (free)

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/

BSWH Libraries: Systematic Reviews

https://bswhealth.libguides.com/SystematicReviews

Covidence: Screening and data extraction tool for systematic reviews (access is free via the health system and university services)

https://bswhealth.libguides.com/az/covidence-8 

As part of the preparation process, I recommend reading 3-10 systematic reviews sourced from journals in your specialty/sub-specialty areas (e.g., neurology, orthopedics). Your project mentor is an ideal source for recommending leading journals in their field. Two examples of systematic reviews in critical care topics are included as samples (PDFs below). Some examples of journals by specialty are listed in the FAQs on this page.

1. Do you have recommendations on how to become more familiar with what a Systematic Review is?

Overall, as part of the overall preparation process, I recommend reading 3-10 systematic reviews sourced from journals in your specialty/sub-specialty areas (e.g., neurology, orthopedics). Examples of systematic reviews in critical care topics are included on this webpage. 

Your project mentor is an ideal source for recommending leading journals in their field. Some examples are below as well.

• General Medicine: JAMA, NEJM, The Lancet, BMJ

• Internal Medicine: JAMA IM, Journal of Hospital Medicine, Journal of General Internal Medicine

• Neurology: Neurology, General Hospital Psychiatry

• Critical Care: Americal Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Critical Care Medicine

2. What information should be included in the study plan section of the project form for initial approval?

I recommend using the PROSPERO registration form to write the study plan section of the initial approval form.

3. Does a systematic review project require IRB approval?

In most cases, systematic review projects do not require IRB approval because they involve analyzing and synthesizing data from already-published and publicly available studies. There is usually no participant-level individual data collection involved and any meta-analysis is using aggregated/grouped and publicly available data. IRB oversight is generally not needed for systematic reviews or meta-analysis projects. Of note, if your project involves any additional components beyond the review of published literature (e.g., surveys of experts, secondary analysis of unpublished data, or use of identifiable records), then IRB review may be necessary. The IRB, advisors and/or mentors are available to confirm expectations.

4. After submitting the initial approval form for a systematic review, can the project be modified? For example, by focusing on a different variable or sociodemographic factors?

Yes, but I recommend writing a protocol for the planned systematic review as the first step. I recommend pre-registration with PROSPERO, and their format has specific prompts that help with compiling content in a structured manner.

5. Our PICO question is [redacted]. We were unsure how to respond to the PROSPERO prompts on risk of bias and study quality assessments. Do you have any recommendations?

Selecting the risk of bias and study quality assessments are methods decisions with multiple options. As a first step to gain more familiarity, I recommend doing a search in PROSPERO for 3-4 similar studies to see examples that others have used. Similarly, I also strongly recommend reading some systematic reviews published in reputable scientific journals in your chose specialty area to gain exposure to how risk of bias and study quality assessments are reported and used.

These decisions will also tie-in to the study designs (e.g., RCTs, longitudinal, QI) that are included in the Results of your systematic review. Examples of risk of bias tools include the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (cohort and case-control studies) and the CASP tools that include a variety of evaluation prompts for different study designs.

6. We also wanted to ask whether the PROSPERO registration needs to be submitted before we begin our article search? 

Yes, the PROSPERO registration is designed to be completed prior to the start of the search, though oftentimes people do 'test searches' as they're preparing the PROSPERO registration to help with making decisions on the type of risk of bias tools planned.

7. Our PICO question is [redacted]. We were hoping for guidance on how best to approach data extraction and organization once we complete our screening using Covidence?

There are tradeoffs and advantages to any approach - to extract and manage data in Covidence vs Excel vs Word, etc. I'm happy to meet via office hours to talk about more specifics or for a Q&A session on the topic of data management for systematic reviews.

Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) and systematic reviews are both critical tools in evidence-based medicine, but they serve distinct purposes and differ in their structure, objectives, and applications. Comparison descriptions and examples are provided at Clinical Practice Guidelines.