Systematic Reviews, done to PRISMA standard
A credible systematic review is methodical, reproducible, and transparent. We guide you through protocol, searching, screening, extraction, and appraisal so your review meets PRISMA 2020 standards and stands up to peer review.
A systematic review is only as strong as its method. Unlike a narrative review, it must be reproducible: another researcher following your protocol should be able to arrive at the same set of included studies. Reviewers and editors look for the hallmarks of that rigour — a registered protocol, a documented and repeatable search, transparent screening with inter-rater agreement, structured data extraction, and a formal risk-of-bias assessment. We help you build each of these to PRISMA 2020 standards, while you remain the author who makes every judgement about the evidence.
Framing a review that can be answered
Most weak reviews fail at the first step — the question is too broad, too narrow, or poorly specified. We help you frame a focused, answerable question using a structured framework such as PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) for intervention reviews or PECO for exposure questions, and translate it into explicit, pre-specified eligibility criteria. Clear inclusion and exclusion rules, set before screening begins, are what keep a review objective and defensible.
What we support
- Question framing using PICO/PECO and explicit eligibility criteria
- Protocol development and guidance on PROSPERO registration
- Search strategy across PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar, with documented terms and Boolean logic
- Screening workflow for title/abstract and full-text stages, including dual screening and conflict resolution
- Data extraction forms, piloted and calibrated for consistency
- Risk-of-bias assessment using the tool appropriate to your study designs
- The PRISMA flow diagram and reporting checklist
Building a reproducible search
The search is the engine of a systematic review. We help you construct a comprehensive, documented strategy — identifying the right databases, developing search terms from your PICO elements, combining them with Boolean operators and, where appropriate, controlled vocabulary such as MeSH, and recording the exact strings and dates for each database. A well-documented search means a reader (or a reviewer) can verify and reproduce exactly how you found your studies, which is precisely what distinguishes a systematic review from an ad-hoc one.
Screening and selection
Studies are screened in two stages — titles and abstracts first, then full texts against the eligibility criteria — ideally by two independent reviewers with disagreements resolved by discussion or a third reviewer. We help you set up this workflow, calculate inter-rater agreement where required, and document reasons for exclusion at the full-text stage so your PRISMA flow diagram is complete and honest.
Assessing risk of bias
Every included study should be appraised for the risk that its design or conduct distorts its results. We help you choose and apply the right tool for your study types — RoB 2 for randomised trials, ROBINS-I for non-randomised studies of interventions, the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale for cohort and case-control studies, and appropriate checklists for diagnostic or prevalence studies — and to summarise the results in a clear risk-of-bias table or figure.
From review to publication
Where your included studies are sufficiently similar in design, population, and outcome, your review can be extended into a quantitative synthesis — see our meta-analysis service. Whether or not you pool the data, we help you structure the manuscript around the PRISMA reporting items and match it to a suitable indexed journal.