Preliminary topic investigation checklist for systematic and scoping reviews

The preliminary topic investigation is a complex iterative process that is a critical initial stage of any research undertaking. Omitting even one step in this process may affect the future of the entire project and result in duplication of effort, important points missed, or other failures. This checklist is designed to help you steer ahead without skipping a step, but if you do, this checklist can also help you to self-correct the course.

Systematic Review Checklist

Problem formulation
1. Document the questions or statements associated with your topic area
2. Think about what you need to know to answer these questions and identify any preconceived opinions
3. Establish relevance and significance of answering these questions
Conduct a literature search in PubMed
1. Identify key articles related to these questions and statements
2. Read key articles to better understand the field of research
3. Identify keywords by looking at titles, abstracts, and keywords of these key articles
4. Identify subject headings (MeSH) in the PubMed records
5. Review the key article’s reference lists, suggested articles, and cited by to discover other relevant articles
Conduct a cited reference search of the key articles in Web of Science
1. Extract keywords by looking at titles, abstracts, keywords, and keywords+
2. Review the key article’s suggested articles and cited by to discover other relevant articles
Return to step 1 (as needed)
1. Modify your research questions with what you learn in step 2&3
2. Clearly define what you intend to achieve through this research
3. Move to step 5, once research scope is finalized
Select a research question framework
1. Identify which Systematic Review framework is appropriate
2. Consider which parts of the research question fit within each segment of the framework
3. Establish and document clear definitions of each segment
Identify prior Systematic Reviews by searching in:
1. PROSPERO for ongoing Systematic Reviews
2. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for ongoing and published Systematic Reviews
3. JBI EBP Database for ongoing and published Systematic Reviews
4. PubMed for published Systematic Reviews
5. Embase for published Systematic Reviews
6. Evaluate quality and currency of any identified systematic reviews on your topic
Verify the Review is feasible and necessary using the FINER criteria
1. Feasible – there is enough evidence available to answer the research question but not so much that there is too much evidence to synthesize
2. Interesting – the team has interest in the topic that will be sustained for the entirety of the review process (6+ months)
3. Novel- the Review addresses a gap in knowledge and is not duplicating work of an existing review
4. Ethical – the research question supports clinical practice and policy
5. Relevant – the findings of the research will inform decisions. See the GRADE framework
Establish inclusion and exclusion criteria
1. Define the eligibility criteria of the participants in the studies
2. Define how studies with a subset of relevant participants will be addressed
3. Define eligible interventions and the inactive or active comparison intervention. Specify their restrictions
4. Define comparisons that will be made between intervention groups
5. Define outcomes that are critical for the Review, if they are being used as criteria for inclusion, and which outcomes are critical for the Review audience
6. Determine and justify what type of study designs are appropriate in answering the Review question
7. Define any additional limitations (e.g., publication date range, language restriction, geographic area) and provide rationale for why each imitation is necessary
Establish a framework for synthesis
1. Determine how the synthesis will be structured
2. Protect the Review from conceptual incoherence

Scoping Review Checklist

Problem formulation
1. Document the questions or statements associated with your topic area
2. Think about what you need to know to answer these questions and identify any preconceived opinions
3. Establish relevance and significance of answering these questions
Conduct a literature search in PubMed
1. Identify key articles related to these questions and statements
2. Read key articles to better understand the field of research
3. Identify keywords by looking at titles, abstracts, and keywords of these key articles
4. Identify subject headings (MeSH) in the PubMed records
5. Review the key article’s reference lists, suggested articles, and cited by to discover other relevant articles
Conduct a cited reference search of the key articles in Web of Science
1. Extract keywords by looking at titles, abstracts, keywords, and keywords+
2. Review the key article’s suggested articles and cited by to discover other relevant articles
Return to step 1 (as needed)
1. Modify your research questions with what you learn in step 2&3
2. Clearly define what you intend to achieve through this research
3. Move to step 5, once research scope is finalized
Construct the PCC research question framework
1. Consider which parts of the research question fit within each segment of the framework
2. Establish and document clear definitions of each segment
Identify prior Scoping Reviews by searching in:
1. Open Science Framework for ongoing scoping reviews
2. JBI EBP Database for ongoing and published scoping reviews
3. PubMed for published scoping reviews
4. Embase for published scoping reviews
Verify the Review is feasible and necessary using the FINER criteria
1. Feasible – there is enough evidence available to answer the research question but not so much that there is too much evidence to summarize
2. Interesting – the team has interest in the topic that will be sustained for the entirety of the review process (6+ months)
3. Novel- the Review addresses a gap in knowledge and is not duplicating work of an existing review
4. Ethical – the research question supports clinical practice and policy
5. Relevant – the findings of the research will inform decisions and be an important contribution to the literature
Establish inclusion and exclusion criteria
1. Define the eligibility criteria of the population
2. Define how studies with a subset of relevant populations will be addressed
3. Define the concept being investigated by the scoping review
4. Define the context in which the concept of the scoping review is being investigated
5. Determine and justify what type of study designs are appropriate in answering the review question
6. Define any additional limitations (e.g., publication date range, language restriction, geographic area) and provide rationale for why each imitation is necessary
Establish approach for the analysis of evidence
1. Describe variables that will be recorded in data extraction
2. Determine approach – frequency counts or descriptive qualitative content analysis

What's Next?

Assuming the systematic review or scoping review project is deemed feasible after the preliminary topic investigation, the research team can proceed with the search and protocol development.