Aromataris, Edoardo

Catala-Lopez, Ferran

Lockwood, Craig

Sarkis-Onofre, Rafael

Systematic Reviews

English

Catalá-López, Ferrán

REPISALUD (Instituto de Salud Carlos III)

EDITORIAL Open AccessHow to properly use the PRISMA StatementRafael Sarkis-Onofre1*, Ferrán Catalá-López2,3, Edoardo Aromataris4 and Craig Lockwood4EditorialIt has been more than a decade since the original publi-cation of the Preferred Reporting Items for SystematicReviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement [1],and it has become one of the most cited reporting guide-lines in biomedical literature [2, 3]. Since its publication,multiple extensions of the PRISMA Statement have beenpublished concomitant with the advancement of know-ledge synthesis methods [4–7]. The PRISMA2020 state-ment, an updated version has recently been published[8], and other extensions are currently in development[9].The number of systematic reviews (SRs) has increasedsubstantially over the past 20 years [10–12]. However,many SRs continue to be poorly conducted and reported[10, 11], and it is still common to see articles that usethe PRISMA Statement and other reporting guidelinesinappropriately, as was highlighted recently [13].The PRISMA Statement and its extensions are anevidence-based, minimum set of recommendations de-signed primarily to encourage transparent and completereporting of SRs. This growing set of guidelines havebeen developed to aid authors with appropriate report-ing of different knowledge synthesis methods (such asSRs, scoping reviews, and review protocols) and to en-sure that all aspects of this type of research are accur-ately and transparently reported. In other words, thePRISMA Statement is a road map to help authors bestdescribe what was done, what was found, and in the caseof a review protocol, what are they are planning to do.Despite this clear and well-articulated intention [2–5],it is common for Systematic Reviews to receive manu-scripts detailing the inappropriate use of the PRISMAStatement and its extensions. Most frequently, improperuse appears with authors attempting to use the PRISMAstatement as a methodological guideline for the designand conduct reviews, or identifying the PRISMA state-ment as a tool to assess the methodological quality of re-views, as seen in the following examples: “This scoping review will be conducted according tothe Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviewsand Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews(PRISMA-ScR) Statement.” “This protocol was designed based on the PreferredReporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) Statement.” “The methodological quality of the includedsystematic reviews will be assessed with thePreferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviewsand Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement.”Some organizations (such as Cochrane and JBI) havedeveloped methodological guidelines that can help au-thors to design or conduct diverse types of knowledgesynthesis rigorously [14, 15]. While the PRISMA state-ment is presented to predominantly guide reporting of asystematic review of interventions with meta-analyses,its detailed criteria can readily be applied to the majorityof review types [13]. Differences between the role of thePRISMA Statement to guide reporting versus guidelinesdetailing methodological conduct is readily illustratedwith the following example: the PRISMA Statement rec-ommends that authors report their complete searchstrategies for all databases, registers, and websites (in-cluding any filters and limits used), but it does not in-clude recommendations for designing and conductingliterature searches [8]. If authors are interested in under-standing how to create search strategies or which data-bases to include, they should refer to the methodologicalguidelines [12, 13]. Thus, the following examples can il-lustrate the appropriate use of the PRISMA Statement inresearch reporting:© The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you giveappropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate ifchanges were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commonslicence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commonslicence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtainpermission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to thedata made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.* Correspondence: rafaelonofre@gmail.com1Graduate Program in Dentistry, Meridional Faculty, IMED, Passo Fundo, BrazilFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleSarkis-Onofre et al. Systematic Reviews          (2021) 10:117 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01671-z “The reporting of this systematic review was guidedby the standards of the Preferred Reporting Itemsfor Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA)Statement.” “This scoping review was reported according to thePreferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviewsand Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews(PRISMA-ScR).” “The protocol is being reported in accordance withthe Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviewand Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P)Statement.”Systematic Reviews supports the complete and trans-parent reporting of research. The Editors require thesubmission of a populated checklist from the relevantreporting guidelines, including the PRISMA checklist orthe most appropriate PRISMA extension. Using thePRISMA statement and its extensions to write protocolsor the completed review report, and completing thePRISMA checklists are likely to let reviewers and readersknow what authors did and found, but also to optimizethe quality of reporting and make the peer reviewprocess more efficient.Transparent and complete reporting is an essentialcomponent of “good research”; it allows readers to judgekey issues regarding the conduct of research and itstrustworthiness and is also critical to establish a study’sreplicability.With the release of a major update to PRISMA in2021, the appropriate use of the updated PRISMA State-ment (and its extensions as those updates progress) willbe an essential requirement for review based submis-sions, and we encourage authors, peer reviewers, andreaders of Systematic Reviews to use and disseminatethat initiative.AbbreviationsPRISMA: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses; PRISMA-ScR: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews andMeta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews; PRISMA-P: Preferred ReportingItems for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols; SRs: SystematicreviewsAcknowledgementsNoneAuthors’ contributionsRSO drafted the initial version. FCL, EA, and CL made substantial additions tothe first and subsequent drafts. All authors read and approved the finalmanuscript.FundingRSO is funded in part by Meridional Foundation. FCL is funded in part by theInstitute of Health Carlos III/CIBERSAM.Availability of data and materialsWe do not have any additional data or materials to share.DeclarationsEthics approval and consent to participateNot applicable.Consent for publicationNot applicable.Competing interestsCL is Editor-in-Chief of Systematic Reviews, FCL is Protocol Editor of System-atic Reviews, and RSO is Associate Editor of Systematic Reviews.Author details1Graduate Program in Dentistry, Meridional Faculty, IMED, Passo Fundo,Brazil. 2Department of Health Planning and Economics, National School ofPublic Health, Institute of Health Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. 3Department ofMedicine, University of Valencia/INCLIVA Health Research Institute andCIBERSAM, Valencia, Spain. 4JBI, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, TheUniversity of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.References1. Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG. PRISMA Group. Preferredreporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMAstatement. J Clin Epidemiol. 2009;62(10):1006–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2009.06.005.2. Caulley L, Cheng W, Catala-Lopez F, Whelan J, Khoury M, Ferraro J, et al.Citation impact was highly variable for reporting guidelines of healthresearch: a citation analysis. J Clin Epidemiol. 2020;127:96–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.07.013.3. Page MJ, Moher D. Evaluations of the uptake and impact of the PreferredReporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)Statement and extensions: a scoping review. Syst Rev. 2017;6(1):263. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-017-0663-8.4. Rethlefsen ML, Kirtley S, Waffenschmidt S, Ayala AP, Moher D, Page MJ, et al.PRISMA-S: an extension to the PRISMA Statement for reporting literaturesearches in systematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2021;10(1):39. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01542-z.5. Tricco AC, Lillie E, Zarin W, O’Brien KK, Colquhoun H, Levac D, et al. PRISMAExtension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation. AnnIntern Med. 2018;169(7):467–73. https://doi.org/10.7326/M18-0850.6. Moher D, Shamseer L, Clarke M, Ghersi D, Liberati A, Petticrew M, et al.Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols(PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Syst Rev. 2015;4(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-4-1.7. Hutton B, Salanti G, Caldwell DM, Chaimani A, Schmid CH, Cameron C, et al.The PRISMA extension statement for reporting of systematic reviewsincorporating network meta-analyses of health care interventions: checklistand explanations. Ann Intern Med. 2015;162(11):777–84. https://doi.org/10.7326/M14-2385.8. Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD,et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reportingsystematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2021;10(1):89. https://doi/10.1186/s13643-021-01626-4.9. EQUATOR Network: Reporting guidelines under development for systematicreviews. https://www.equator-network.org/library/reporting-guidelines-under-development/reporting-guidelines-under-development-for-systematic-reviews/. Accessed 11 Feb 2021.10. Page MJ, Shamseer L, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Sampson M, Tricco AC, et al.Epidemiology and Reporting Characteristics of Systematic Reviews ofBiomedical Research: A Cross-Sectional Study. Plos Med. 2016;13(5):e1002028. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002028.11. Ioannidis JP. The Mass Production of Redundant, Misleading, and ConflictedSystematic Reviews and Meta-analyses. Milbank Q. 2016;94(3):485–514.https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12210.12. Niforatos JD, Weaver M, Johansen ME. Assessment of Publication Trends ofSystematic Reviews and Randomized Clinical Trials, 1995 to 2017. JAMAIntern Med. 2019;179(11):1593–4. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.3013.Sarkis-Onofre et al. Systematic Reviews          (2021) 10:117 Page 2 of 313. Caulley L, Catala-Lopez F, Whelan J, Khoury M, Ferraro J, Cheng W, et al.Reporting guidelines of health research studies are frequently usedinappropriately. J Clin Epidemiol. 2020;122:87–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.03.006.14. Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA(editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. 2ndEdition ed. Chichester: Wiley; 2019.15. Aromataris E, Munn Z (Editors). JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. ed.Adelaide: JBI; 2020.Publisher’s NoteSpringer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims inpublished maps and institutional affiliations.Sarkis-Onofre et al. Systematic Reviews          (2021) 10:117 Page 3 of 3

How to properly use the PRISMA Statement

EditorialAbstract unavailableRafael Sarkis-Onofre, Ferrán Catalá-López, Edoardo Aromataris, and Craig Lockwoo

Sarkis-Onofre, R.

Catalá-López, F.

Aromataris, E.

Lockwood, C.

Adelaide Research & Scholarship

https://repisalud.isciii.es/bitstream/20.500.12105/13935/1/HowToProperlyUse_2021.pdf

How to properly use the PRISMA Statement

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