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Systematic and Systematic-like Reviews - old

Standards for reporting

Depending on the organisation for which you are conducting your review, or the journal you wish to publish it in, you may need to adhere to very specific guidelines and standards.

PRISMA - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. This is a commonly used minimum set of items for transparent reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The website includes the PRISMA statement, a 27-item checklist and a range of flow diagrams, as well as PRISMA extensions such as the PRISMA-P for protocols and PRISMA-S for searching.

Equator Network - Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research. This international initiative aims to improve the reliability of published health literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and the wider use of robust reporting guidelines.  It includes reporting guidelines for the main study types in health research and recommends PRISMA for the reporting of systematic reviews.

Amstar - A Measurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews. A Canadian resource which provides tools to assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews, and can be used as a guide to the conduct of reviews.

Guidelines by discipline

It would be worthwhile to find some systematic reviews that have been published in well-regarded journals in a similar field of research to your own. They could be very valuable models to follow in conjunction with the PRISMA or AMSTAR standards, or the guidelines provided in particular disciplines below.

Resource Discipline/Subject area
Campbell Collaboration Crime and justice, education, international development, social welfare
Centre for Reviews & Dissemination, University of York Healthcare
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Healthcare, clinical medicine, health services
Cochrane Handbook for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews Medical diagnostics
Collaboration for Environmental Evidence Environmental science and environmental management
EPPI-Centre Methods for Conducting Systematic Reviews Education, social policy, health promotion, economic development, crime, other social sciences
Guidelines for Performing Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering (2007) Software engineering
Guidelines and Standards for Evidence Synthesis in Environmental Management (Version 5.0, 2018) Environmental science, conservation biology
Guidelines - Systematic Reviews of Health Promotion and Public Health Interventions (2007) Public health

Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis (2020)

Nursing, healthcare, health professions
Methods Guide for Effectiveness and Comparative Effectiveness Reviews (AHRQ) Effectiveness, comparative effectiveness, and comparative harms of healthcare interventions
National Academies for Sciences, Engineering, Medicine - Standards for Systematic Reviews Health, medicine

ROSES – RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses in environmental research

Environment, environmental science
Systematic Quantitative Literature Reviews (Griffith University) Environmental science

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