The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews

• Published in: PLoS medicine Vol. 18; no. 3; p. e1003583
• Main Authors: Page, Matthew J., McKenzie, Joanne E., Bossuyt, Patrick M., Boutron, Isabelle, Hoffmann, Tammy C., Mulrow, Cynthia D., Shamseer, Larissa, Tetzlaff, Jennifer M., Akl, Elie A., Brennan, Sue E., Chou, Roger, Glanville, Julie, Grimshaw, Jeremy M., Hróbjartsson, Asbjørn, Lalu, Manoj M., Li, Tianjing, Loder, Elizabeth W., Mayo-Wilson, Evan, McDonald, Steve, McGuinness, Luke A., Stewart, Lesley A., Thomas, James, Tricco, Andrea C., Welch, Vivian A., Whiting, Penny, Moher, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 29.03.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Careers; Editorials; Endorsements; Epidemiology; Equity method; Evidence-Based Medicine - standards; Feedback; Funding; Guidelines and Guidance; Humans; Jargon; Learning algorithms; Life Sciences; Machine learning; Management; Medical research; Medicine and Health Sciences; Meta-analysis; Meta-synthesis; Physical Sciences; Publishing - standards; Research and Analysis Methods; Scholarships & fellowships; Systematic review; Systematic Reviews as Topic - methods; Systematic Reviews as Topic - standards; Terminology; United States; Canada; Health care policy reports; Research reporting guidelines; Systematic reviews; Health care providers; Peer review; Medical risk factors; Database searching; Metaanalysis
• ISSN: 1549-1676; 1549-1277; 1549-1676
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003583

The funders had no role in considering the study design or in the collection, analysis, interpretation of data, writing of the report, or decision to submit the article for publication. Competing interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: EL is head of research for the BMJ; MJP is an editorial board member for PLOS Medicine; ACT is an associate editor and MJP, TL, EMW, and DM are editorial board members for the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology; DM and LAS were editors in chief, LS, JMT, and ACT are associate editors, and JG is an editorial board member for Systematic Reviews. [...]technological advances have enabled the use of natural language processing and machine learning to identify relevant evidence,[22–24] methods have been proposed to synthesise and present findings when meta-analysis is not possible or appropriate,[25–27] and new methods have been developed to assess the risk of bias in results of included studies. Summary points * To ensure a systematic review is valuable to users, authors should prepare a transparent, complete, and accurate account of why the review was done, what they did, and what they found * The PRISMA 2020 statement provides updated reporting guidance for systematic reviews that reflects advances in methods to identify, select, appraise, and synthesise studies * The PRISMA 2020 statement consists of a 27-item checklist, an expanded checklist that details reporting recommendations for each item, the PRISMA 2020 abstract checklist, and revised flow diagrams for original and updated reviews * We anticipate that the PRISMA 2020 statement will benefit authors, editors, and peer reviewers of systematic reviews, and different users of reviews, including guideline developers, policy makers, healthcare providers, patients, and other stakeholders Development of PRISMA 2020 A complete description of the methods used to develop PRISMA 2020 is available elsewhere.