PRISMA-Children (C) and PRISMA-Protocol for Children (P-C) Extensions: a study protocol for the development of guidelines for the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of newborn and child health research

Abstract

IntroductionPaediatric systematic reviews differ from adult systematic reviews in several key aspects such as considerations of child tailored interventions, justifiable comparators, valid outcomes and child sensitive search strategies. Available guidelines, including PRISMA-P (2015) and PRISMA (2009), do not cover all the complexities associated with reporting systematic reviews in the paediatric population. Using a collaborative, multidisciplinary structure, we aim to develop evidence-based and consensus-based PRISMA-P-C (Protocol for Children) and PRISMA-C (Children) Extensions to guide paediatric systematic review protocol and completed review reporting.Methods and analysisThis project's methodology follows published recommendations for developing reporting guidelines and involves the following six phases; (1) establishment of a steering committee representing key stakeholder groups; (2) a scoping review to identify potential Extension items; (3) three types of consensus activities including meetings of the steering committee to achieve high-level decisions on the content and methodology of the Extensions, a survey of key stakeholders to generate a list of possible items to include in the Extensions and a formal consensus meeting to select the reporting items to add to, or modify for, the Extension; (4) the preliminary checklist items generated in phase III will be evaluated against the existing evidence and reporting practices in paediatric systematic reviews; (5) extension statements and explanation and elaboration documents will provide detailed advice for each item and examples of good reporting; (6) development and implementation of effective knowledge translation of the extension checklist, and an evaluation of the Extensions by key stakeholders.Ethics and DisseminationThis protocol was considered a quality improvement project by the Hospital for Sick Children's Ethics Committee and did not require ethical review. The resultant checklists, jointly developed with all relevant stakeholders, will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals as well as national and international conference presentations. Endorsement of the checklist will be sought simultaneously in multiple journals.

Updating guidance for reporting systematic reviews: development of the PRISMA 2020 statement

“…We converted the three Discussion section items in the PRISMA 2009 statement (items [24][25][26] to four sub-items and rearranged the content for better flow. The sub-items recommend authors: (23a) provide a general interpretation of the results in the context of other evidence; (23b) discuss any limitations of the evidence included in the review; (23c) discuss any limitations of the review processes used; and (23d) discuss implications of the results for practice, policy, and future research.…”

“…We constructed a sampling frame, consisting of all members of the PRISMA 2009 and PRISMA for Protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 Groups (15,16), corresponding authors of all PRISMA extensions that were published (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) or in development at the time of the survey (25)(26)(27)(28), editors in chief and associate editors for two journals specialising in systematic review methodology (BMC Systematic Reviews and The compiled list of individuals was sent to the core team for their review, where they were provided with the opportunity to nominate other individuals. The survey was sent to all individuals on the final list, which consisted of 220 individuals.…”

Impact of child summertime obesity interventions on body mass index, and weight-related behaviours: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

“…This protocol has been registered with PROSPERO (registration number CRD42016041750) and reported in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), 78 PRISMA-Protocol 79 and PRISMA-Protocol for Children Extension 80 guidelines.…”

Protocol for a scoping review to map evidence from randomised controlled trials on paediatric eye disease to disease burden

“…Our scoping review protocol will use a systematic approach to searching the literature for randomised controlled trials in the broad topic area of interventions to prevent or treat paediatric eye disease. The PRISMA-P and PRISMA-PC statements were used to guide the reporting of this protocol [ 19 – 21 ]. The populated PRISMA-P checklist is available as a supplementary file to this protocol (Additional file 1 ).…”