Systematic Reviews

Develop the Question

A well-defined research question helps identify the concepts to search to answer your question.

Clearly state the objectives of the review (what question are you trying to answer?)
Ask yourself if you've considered the FINER components:
- Feasibility: Is the question answerable? Is it doable?
- Interesting: Is your question interesting to others besides yourself? Does it fill a meaningful gap in the literature?
- Novel: Is your question novel? New? Looking at a different population?
- Ethical: Is it ethical?
- Relevant: Is it relevant or practical for policy and/or /practice?

Search Frameworks - Search frameworks help you create a research question by suggesting elements you to consider. Not all questions are suited for a single framework. Several of the more common frameworks are found below.

PICO

Population/Patient/Problem - What is the population or characteristics?
Intervention - What is the intervention, prognostic factor, treatment, etc.?
Comparison - What is the comparator, if any?
Outcome - What are the expected outcomes, improvements, measures, etc?

May also include one or more of the following:

Time - Is there a specific time-frame involved?
Type of Question - Diagnosis, Therapy, Etiology/Harm/Prevention, Prognosis
Type of Study - Prospective, Retrospective, Cohort, Case-Control, Randomized Controlled Trial, etc.

PISCO

Population/Patient/Problem - What is the population or characteristics?
Intervention - What is the intervention, prognostic factor, treatment, etc.
Setting (if appropriate) - Hospital, Outpatient, School, Rural
Comparison or intervention (if appropriate) - What are you comparing the intervention with?
Outcome - What is the outcome you want to measure or achieve

SPICE

Setting - What is the setting/context? Where?
Population/Perspective - Who are the users, potential users, stakeholders of the particular service? For whom?
Intervention - What is being done?
Comparison - What else has been tried?
Evaluation - What measurement will be used to determine the success? What is the result?

ECLIPSE

Expectation - Why is the information needed?
Client Group - Who needs, or will use, the information?
Location - Where is the service taking place?
Impact - What is being evaluated? How will success be measured?
Professionals - Who provides the service?
Service - What is the service being evaluated?