• Quality Assurance

Resources for systematic reviews in biomedical research

A high-quality systematic review (with or without a meta-analysis) follows a rigorous and reproducible methodology resulting in a comprehensive summary and appraisal of research in a field. The key characteristics of a systematic review are:

  • a clearly stated set of objectives with an explicit, reproducible methodology
  • a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies that would meet the eligibility criteria
  • an assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies, for example through the assessment of risk of bias and
  • systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies

Well-conducted systematic reviews (published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals in the case of doctorate by publication) are considered original research articles for the purposes of fulfilling doctoral degree requirements at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin according to the current Doctoral Degree Regulations 2017 (PO2017), providing they follow high quality standards.

Below we have collated resources to assist researchers design, conduct, and report high quality systematic reviews.

Below we have collated resources to assist researchers design, conduct, and report high quality systematic reviews.

  • Guidelines for Systematic Review Design & Conduct

    Clinical:

    Preclinical/Animal:

    • CAMARADES provides a supporting framework for the conduct of systematic reviews of animal studies. For guidance on the conduct of preclinical systematic reviews, see our wiki guidance at www.camarades.de

    JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis:

  • Protocol Registration & Planning a Systematic Review
    • Pre-registration / protocol publication practices promote transparency and help to reduce potential for biases. A protocol should be published and/or pre-registered in a suitable repository a priori, and will guide the conduct of the systematic search and synthesis procedures of the review. PROSPERO is an international registry that accepts registration of clinical and preclinical systematic reviews. Alternatively, an increasing number of biomedical journals will publish systematic review protocols, and repositories such as the Open Science Framework offer frozen, time-stamped registrations, promoting scientific integrity
    • To ensure transparent reporting of your protocol, please adhere to the PRISMA-P guidelines
    • Systematic reviews are a significant undertaking, ensure you plan the resources required for your review. Use the PredicTER Tool to estimate time and human resources
  • Systematic Searching
  • Critical Appraisal / Risk of bias
    • Critical appraisal is a vital part of a systematic review. A formal risk of bias assessment is performed for each included study in your review. The type of risk of bias tool you will use depends on the experimental design of the primary study. Ma and colleagues provide an overview of risk of bias and critical appraisal tools for different study designs
    • The SYRCLE Risk of Bias tool is recommended for critically appraising animal experiments
    • The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool is recommended for critically appraising clinical randomised controlled trials
    • In the absence of a validated risk of bias tool for the study designs included in your review, methodological and reporting quality can be assessed. Use the EQUATOR Network website to identify relevant reporting guidelines
    • To present the findings of your risk of bias analysis, we recommend providing a visualisation such as a traffic light plot or summary plot, which can be created using the RobVis tool
  • Meta-analysis
    • There is an amazing hands-on guide and book developed by Mathias Harer and colleagues with theoretical explanations and code chunks for conducting meta-analysis in R
    • To help you calculate different types of effect sizes, the Campbell collaboration has developed this effect size calculator tool
    • If a network meta-analysis is undertaken, ensure reporting in accordance with the PRISMA-NMA guidelines
  • Tools & Software
    • Different types of software and tools can be used to help conduct your systematic review. A free online software called SyRF www.syrf.org.uk is designed for systematic review of animal studies. The CAMARADES Berlin helpdesk can provide assistance with using this software
    • We recommend becoming familiar with reference management software for example, EndNote or Zotero. Members of the Charité can use the campus license for Endnote, see more information on the Charité Intranet here
    • To explore what tools and software might be suitable for you, see the Systematic Review Toolbox, an online catalogue of tools that support various tasks within the systematic review process
  • Publishing & Reporting Guidelines
    • PRISMA: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines are endorsed by several editorial organisations and several hundred journals that publish systematic reviews. They have recently been updated and recommend reporting items for all aspects ranging from research question specification to transparent reporting of the findings of a systematic review. Extended guidelines are available for different types of reviews, and an extension for preclinical systematic reviews is currently under development
    • If you conducted a systematic review without meta-analysis, please see the SWiM reporting guidelines
    • AMSTAR 2: is a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews that results in an overall rating of confidence in the results of the review from “Critically low” to “High”. The AMSTAR 2 checklist can be used to assess completed systematic reviews and help you report the conclusions of your own review
  • Tutorials & Learning - Opportunities at Charité
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Sarah McCann, PhD

QUEST Deputy Spokesperson | Research group leader

Phone:
+49 30 450 543 673
E-mail:
sarah.mccann[at]bih-charite.de