{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,4]],"date-time":"2026-10-04T14:31:31Z","timestamp":1791124291644,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":75,"publisher":"BMJ","issue":"6","content-domain":{"domain":["bmj.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Reg Anesth Pain Med"],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2023,6,26]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Comprehensive resources exist on how to plan a systematic review and meta-analysis. The objective of this article is to provide guidance to authors preparing their systematic review protocol in the fields of regional anesthesia and pain medicine. The focus is on systematic reviews of healthcare interventions, with or without an aggregate data meta-analysis. We describe and discuss elements of the systematic review methodology that review authors should prespecify, plan, and document in their protocol before commencing the review. Importantly, authors should explain their rationale for planning their systematic review and describe the PICO framework\u2014participants (P), interventions (I),comparators (C), outcomes (O)\u2014and related elements central to constructing their clinical question, framing an informative review title, determining the scope of the review, designing the search strategy, specifying the eligibility criteria, and identifying potential sources of heterogeneity. We highlight the importance of authors defining and prioritizing the primary outcome, defining eligibility criteria for selecting studies, and documenting sources of information and search strategies. The review protocol should also document methods used to evaluate risk of bias, quality (certainty) of the evidence, and heterogeneity of results. Furthermore, the authors should describe their plans for managing key data elements, the statistical construct used to estimate the intervention effect, methods of evidence synthesis and meta-analysis, and conditions when meta-analysis may not be possible, including the provision of practical solutions. Authors should provide enough detail in their protocol so that the readers could conduct the study themselves.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1136\/rapm-2023-104801","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,9]],"date-time":"2023-11-09T09:35:19Z","timestamp":1699522519000},"page":"391-402","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1136\/crossmarkpolicy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":25,"title":["Systematic reviews and meta-analyses in regional anesthesia and pain medicine (Part I): guidelines for preparing the review protocol"],"prefix":"10.1136","volume":"49","author":[{"given":"Michael J","family":"Barrington","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Pain Medicine, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Portland, Oregon, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ryan S","family":"D\u2019Souza","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Edward J","family":"Mascha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Departments of Quantitative Health Sciences and Outcomes Research, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Samer","family":"Narouze","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Pain Medicine, Western Reserve Hospital, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"George A","family":"Kelley","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"239","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"2025101110532523000_49.6.391.1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chloros GD , Prodromidis AD , Giannoudis PV . 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