Introduction to protocols and protocol registration

What is a protocol?

• Like a blueprint for a house
• States your rationale, hypothesis, and planned methodology
• Created a priori
• Registered or shared/archived publically for transparency

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How much detail do I need?

PRISMA-P - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews & Meta-analysis - for Protocols (http://www.prisma-statement.org/Extensions/Protocols )

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Chapter 5 (Protocols) in Campbell Systematic Reviews: Policies & guidelines

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Guidance for scoping reviews: Peters et al., (2022). Best practice guidance and reporting items for the development of scoping review protocols. JBI Evidence Synthesis, 20(4), 953-968. doi.org/10.11124/JBIES-21-00242

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PRISMA-P(rotocol)

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http://www.prisma-statement.org/Extensions/Protocols

Evidence Synthesis Protocol Templates

Ghezzi-Kopel, Kate, & Porciello, Jaron. (2020). Evidence synthesis protocol template. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ZWD6N

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JBI Scoping Review Template (Link will download a Word Doc)

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PROSPERO template (health-related systematic reviews): If registering on PROSPERO, download the template from their website (Link to PDF version)

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Evidence synthesis protocol registries for social, animal, food, and environmental sciences

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• Social sciences
• Protocols & reviews published in Campbell Systematic Reviews journal

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• Animal and food science protocols

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• Environmental sciences
• Protocols & reviews published in Environmental Evidence journal

Protocol registries for evidence syntheses with health related outcomes

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• Health outcomes only
• No scoping reviews
• Currently prioritizing COVID-19 protocols

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• Health sciences
• Rigorous submission process
• Cochrane protocols cross-post to PROSPERO

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• Health sciences
• Register is for the use of JBI affiliated entities ONLY
• Systematic reviews

Registries, repositories and more

Protocol registries

• Open Science Framework Registries
• Protocols.io

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Repositories

• Institutional repositories
• Funder repositories
• Pre-print servers

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Open Science Framework: (collaboration space + registry)

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https://osf.io/

• Create your own project space
• Add collaborators
• Auto-generate a DOI
• Pre-register
• Disseminate your project URL
• Add other materials

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Take a look at the example review that you chose

Do the authors mention a protocol in the methods section of the article? Do they provide a link to the protocol?

Respond with:

• 1) Yes or No (respond in the poll)
• 2) If yes, where did they register/store their protocol? (respond in the chat)

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PROSPERO: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the efficacy of vitamin B in the management of diabetic peripheral neuropathy: Protocol

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=135162

Collaboration for Environmental Evidence: What evidence exists on the impacts of chemicals arising from human activity on tropical reef-building corals? A systematic map protocol

https://environmentalevidencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13750-020-00203-x

• Registered in Prospero even though they have started screening
• What was interesting to me was that the 3 authors are from a Dental Institute, whose interest in diabetic peripheral neuropathy might not be evident.
• review status have not been updated since 2019

• The test list was a little confusing

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Campbell Collaboration: PROTOCOL: Does executive compensation predict publicly traded firms’ financial performance or inaccurate financial reporting?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cl2.1064

Open Science Framework: The State of the Literature on Individual and Household Resilience: A Scoping Review Protocol

https://osf.io/5rgb7/

• Does Campbell have as many training resources? Is it common to refer to either [Cochrane vs Campbell] when appropriate?

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• Why are the inclusion and exclusion criteria different in the title screening than they are in the title-abstract full-text screening? Also, I find it weird that the first screening was done only with the Title only instead of with Title-Abstract.
• I noticed the authors missed many core databases, such as Econlit, Worldwide PoliSci Abs, Sociological Abs, etc.
• Why is a risk of bias assessment not applicable?

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More general comments

Why did they search both pubmed and medline?

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I was confused about why there is a need to consult a list of experts to identify additional studies.

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Using Google Scholar as a database is the wrong choice, as it will not allow the search strategy to be reproduced

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How much pain and effort was extended on finding resources beyond core databases that may have, or may not have influence findings. Why select sooo many databases, citations, resources to search if it doesn't make a difference?

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Questions?

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