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:
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3 - 8 | Searches for published and unpublished studies |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.
Systematic reviews involve multiple steps: