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.
BACKGROUND
Paediatric 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
This 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.


BACKGROUND
This 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.
Department of Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Mufiza Z
MZ
Kapadia
Systematic Reviews & Health Technology Assessment, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, the University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Lisa
L
Askie
Department of Pediatrics, Alberta Research Centre for Health Evidence, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Lisa
L
Hartling
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases, Stanford University School of Medicine, and Meta Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford, California, USA.
Despina
D
Contopoulos-Ioannidis
Department of Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Zulfiqar A
ZA
Bhutta
Department of Pediatrics, University of Vermont College of Medicine; Vermont Oxford Network, Burlington, Vermont, USA.
Roger
R
Soll
Centres for Practice-Changing Research, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
David
D
Moher
Department of Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Martin
M
Offringa
D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health; D032921:Consensus; D017408:Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D012107:Research Design; D000078202:Systematic Reviews as Topic
pediatric; reporting guideline; systematic review