Planning and preparation are essential for the successful conduct of a systematic review.
Assembling a Team:
Ensure that you have a sufficient team for conducting a review, and establish roles and responsibilities:
- Principal Investigator/Subject Matter Expert, Methodologist, Project Manager, Two Reviewers, Arbiter, Informationist
- If conducting a meta-analysis: Biostatistician
Estimating the Time for the Review
A systematic review may take a year or longer to complete.
Cochrane suggests a 1-year timeline, with each step taking a month or longer:
| Month |
Step |
| 1 - 2 |
Preparation of protocol |
| 3 - 8 |
Searches for published and unpublished studies |
| 2 - 3 |
Pilot test of eligibility criteria |
| 3 - 8 |
Inclusion assessments |
| 3 |
Pilot test of 'Risk of bias' assessment |
| 3 - 10 |
Validity assessments |
| 3 |
Pilot test of data collection |
| 3 - 10 |
Data collection |
| 3 - 10 |
Data entry |
| 5 - 11 |
Follow up of missing information |
| 8 - 10 |
Analysis |
| 1 - 11 |
Preparation of review report |
| 12 - |
Keeping the review up-tp-date |
To estimate how long it will take to conduct your review, try the PredicTER tool.
