Danesh Lab - Systematic Reviews

Systematic Reviews for Inquiry Projects

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 Inquiry 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 Inquiry projects via the health system Library Services team (link below).

Samples of published systematic reviews in other domains are attached. For Systematic Reviews as Inquiry work products, up to two (2) students can share Inquiry 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 Inquiry credit and 1-2 not for Inquiry 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 a resume/CV and background information on the data or interest areas a few days prior to meeting to allow for pre-review.

Resources

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

PROSPERO

BSWH Libraries: Systematic Reviews

Covidence

Sample Systematic Reviews

As part of the preparation process, I recommend reading 2-10 systematic reviews sourced from journals in your specialty/sub-specialty areas (e.g., neurology, orthopedics). In the meantime, two examples of systematic reviews in critical care topics are included as samples:

Many of these publications are freely accessible via PubMed. Full-text PDFs of publications are provided here for personal use and not for distribution. Publications are posted with the intent to increase accessibility to science.

Short-2023-European Journal of Hospital Pharma.pdf

Short 2023 JHP

Short, A., McPeake, J., Andonovic, M., McFee, S., Quasim, T., Leyland, A., . . . MacTavish, P. (2023). Medication-related problems in critical care survivors: a systematic review. European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, ejhpharm-2023-003715. doi:10.1136/ejhpharm-2023-003715

Tieges-2021-Age Ageing.pdf

Tieges 2021 AA

Tieges, Z., Maclullich, A. M. J., Anand, A., Brookes, C., Cassarino, M., O'connor, M., . . . Galvin, R. (2021). Diagnostic accuracy of the 4AT for delirium detection in older adults: systematic review and meta-analysis. Age & Ageing, 50(3), 733-743. doi:10.1093/ageing/afaa224

Sample Systematic Review Steps

Timeline durations and activities vary by project and by team. This is simply an example.

Step 1

Preliminary library search and refinement/selection of topic

Complete by the end of Week 3

- Introduction to primary sources

- Navigate electronic resources with librarian

- Draft and finalize manuscript purpose statement to guide the search. Journals are increasingly requiring (or prefer) pre-registration of the systematic search protocol. PROSPERO is a free platform to pre-register protocols.

- Conduct the literature search (after PROSPERO registration)

- Initial screening of articles returned in the search. Typically this is a 2-step process of screening 1) titles/abstracts; and then 2) full-text reviews. Many teams opt to use an electronic platform (e.g., Covidence, Rayyan) for managing the journal files and 'votes' on inclusion/exclusion for the screening stages.

Step 2

Reading list and preliminary paper outline

Complete by end of Week 6

- Deep analysis of selected articles

- Organize notes by grouping results of the deep analysis. This is nearly always in the form of a Table that will be included in the systematic review manuscript.

Step 3

I recommend reviewing Viglianti 2019 CHEST for practical advice on common team-related aspects and advice on style/framing of manuscript components.

First draft of paper

Complete by end of Week 12

- Synthesize trends and patterns

- Write first draft

Step 4

Revised final draft of paper

Complete by end of Week 15

- Revisions with writing team

- Formatting for submission

- Submission

Systematic Reviews and Clinical Practice Guidelines

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.

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