PROSPERO

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PROSPERO International prospective register of
systematic reviews
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Background the need for registration

• Systematic reviews usually provide the evidence
  base upon which health and social care decisions
  are made so they should be robust and free from
  bias
• There is concern about publication and selective
  outcome reporting biases associated with
  systematic reviews
• Unplanned duplication of reviews is a waste of
  resource
• No open register for review protocols (Cochrane
  and Campbell Collaboration protocol registration
  limited to their own organisations)
• PRISMA 2009 Checklist asks for protocol and
  registration details

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Taking the initiative

• Following publication of the PRISMA statement CRD
  began to receive unsolicited requests to register
  systematic reviews
• CRD has an established IT platform and
  infrastructure for the DARE, NHS EED and HTA
  databases
• Set up an international advisory group
• Carried out an international consultation to
  establish a minimum dataset and raise awareness

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Registration minimum dataset 22 required fields

• Review design

• Administrative

• Review question/objective
• Condition/domain studied
• Search details
• Participants/population
• Intervention/exposure
• Comparator/control
• Study types
• Primary outcomes
• Secondary outcomes
• Risk of bias (quality) assessment
• Strategy for data synthesis
• Planned subgroup analyses

• Review title
• Named contact(s)
• Contact e-mail
• Organisational affiliation
• Funding source/sponsors
• Conflict of interests
• Anticipated or actual start date
• Stage of review
• Anticipated completion date
• Review status
• these fields are updated as the review
  progresses

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Registration dataset 18 optional fields

• Administrative

• Review design

• Contact postal address
• Contact phone number
• Review team members affiliations
• Collaborators
• Other registration details
• Organisational reference number
• Language
• Country
• Key words
• Existing review by same authors
• Any other information

• Type of review
• URL to search strategy
• URL to full protocol
• Context
• Data extraction methods
• Dissemination plan
• Link to final report/publication (added over
  time)
• Fields included in response to Delphi comments

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PROSPERO International prospective register of
systematic reviews

• Web based
• Free to register
• Free to search
• Users create and update their own records
• Minimum data set required
• Record content is the responsibility of review
  lead
• Administrators check for sense not peer review
• A public audit trail of amendments is maintained

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Eligibility for inclusion in PROSPERO

• Systematic reviews of the effects of
  interventions and strategies to prevent,
  diagnose, treat, and monitor health conditions,
  for which there is a health related outcome
• Exclusions Reviews of reviews, Scoping reviews,
  Reviews of methods, Reviews of animal studies
• Completed reviews are not accepted
• Registration should take place once the
  systematic review protocol is finalised, but
  ideally before screening studies for inclusion
  begins
• Working on automatic upload of Cochrane
  protocols, so they should not be registered
  individually

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The story so far

• PROSPERO opened for registration 22 February 2011
• By February 2012
• Registered reviews being undertaken in 33
  different countries
• 359 registrations published
• 339 are ongoing reviews
• 15 are completed but not yet published
• 3 are completed and published
• 2 are updates of existing reviews
• 89 submissions rejected almost all because they
  were too far advanced or completed on first
  submission

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Current and future developments

• Support from organisations such as Cochrane and
  Campbell Collaborations, Joanna Briggs Institute,
  G-I-N, INAHTA
• Support from PLoS journals, BMJ, BMJ Open and the
  new BMC journal Systematic Reviews
• Establishing mechanisms with commissioning and
  funding organisations to facilitate grant holder
  uptake and compliance
• National Institute for Health Research (UK)
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• Currently promoting registration phase of
  development and planning promotion of search
  facility
• Evaluation after one year of operation planned

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Visitors to the PROSPERO website

• Between the launch on 22 Feb 2011 and 22 Feb 2012
  the PROSPERO site had nearly 14,000 visitors from
  104 different identifiable countries or
  territories

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www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO