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  3. Reporting guideline for overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions: development of the PRIOR statement
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Research

Reporting guideline for overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions: development of the PRIOR statement

BMJ 2022; 378 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-070849 (Published 09 August 2022) Cite this as: BMJ 2022;378:e070849
  1. Michelle Gates, research associate1,
  2. Allison Gates, research associate1,
  3. Dawid Pieper, head of department2,
  4. Ricardo M Fernandes, assistant professor3,
  5. Andrea C Tricco, associate professor4 5 6,
  6. David Moher, professor7,
  7. Sue E Brennan, senior research fellow8,
  8. Tianjing Li, associate professor9,
  9. Michelle Pollock, principal research lead10,
  10. Carole Lunny, postdoctoral research fellow4,
  11. Dino Sepúlveda, head of department11 12,
  12. Joanne E McKenzie, associate professor8,
  13. Shannon D Scott, professor13,
  14. Karen A Robinson, professor14,
  15. Katja Matthias, professor of public health and digital medicine15,
  16. Konstantinos I Bougioukas, meta-researcher16,
  17. Paolo Fusar-Poli, professor17 18 19 20,
  18. Penny Whiting, professor21,
  19. Stephana J Moss, senior research associate22,
  20. Lisa Hartling, professor1
  1. 1Alberta Research Centre for Health Evidence, Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
  2. 2Institute for Research in Operative Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany
  3. 3Clinical Pharmacology Unit, Faculty of Medicine and Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
  4. 4Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada
  5. 5Epidemiology Division and Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
  6. 6Queen’s Collaboration for Health Care Quality Joanna Briggs Institute Centre of Excellence, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada
  7. 7Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, ON, Canada
  8. 8School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  9. 9Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Denver, CO, USA
  10. 10Institute of Health Economics, Edmonton, AB, Canada
  11. 11Department of Health Technology Assessment and Evidence Based Healthcare, Ministry of Health, Chile
  12. 12School of Medicine, Autonomous University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
  13. 13Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
  14. 14Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
  15. 15Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Applied Science Stralsund, Stralsund, Germany
  16. 16Department of Hygiene, Social-Preventive Medicine, and Medical Statistics, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
  17. 17Early Psychosis: Interventions and Clinical-detection Laboratory, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King’s Collect London, London, UK
  18. 18OASIS Service, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  19. 19Department of Brain and Behavioural Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
  20. 20National Institute for Health Research, Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
  21. 21Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  22. 22Department of Critical Care Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
  1. Correspondence to: L Hartling hartling{at}ualberta.ca (or @arche4evidence on Twitter)
  • Accepted 30 May 2022

Abstract

Objective To develop a reporting guideline for overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions.

Design Development of the preferred reporting items for overviews of reviews (PRIOR) statement.

Participants Core team (seven individuals) led day-to-day operations, and an expert advisory group (three individuals) provided methodological advice. A panel of 100 experts (authors, editors, readers including members of the public or patients) was invited to participate in a modified Delphi exercise. 11 expert panellists (chosen on the basis of expertise, and representing relevant stakeholder groups) were invited to take part in a virtual face-to-face meeting to reach agreement (≥70%) on final checklist items. 21 authors of recently published overviews were invited to pilot test the checklist.

Setting International consensus.

Intervention Four stage process established by the EQUATOR Network for developing reporting guidelines in health research: project launch (establish a core team and expert advisory group, register intent), evidence reviews (systematic review of published overviews to describe reporting quality, scoping review of methodological guidance and author reported challenges related to undertaking overviews of reviews), modified Delphi exercise (two online Delphi surveys to reach agreement (≥70%) on relevant reporting items followed by a virtual face-to-face meeting), and development of the reporting guideline.

Results From the evidence reviews, we drafted an initial list of 47 potentially relevant reporting items. An international group of 52 experts participated in the first Delphi survey (52% participation rate); agreement was reached for inclusion of 43 (91%) items. 44 experts (85% retention rate) completed the second Delphi survey, which included the four items lacking agreement from the first survey and five new items based on respondent comments. During the second round, agreement was not reached for the inclusion or exclusion of the nine remaining items. 19 individuals (6 core team and 3 expert advisory group members, and 10 expert panellists) attended the virtual face-to-face meeting. Among the nine items discussed, high agreement was reached for the inclusion of three and exclusion of six. Six authors participated in pilot testing, resulting in minor wording changes. The final checklist includes 27 main items (with 19 sub-items) across all stages of an overview of reviews.

Conclusions PRIOR fills an important gap in reporting guidance for overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions. The checklist, along with rationale and example for each item, provides guidance for authors that will facilitate complete and transparent reporting. This will allow readers to assess the methods used in overviews of reviews of healthcare interventions and understand the trustworthiness and applicability of their findings.

Footnotes

  • Contributors: MG, AG, DP, RMF, ACT, DM, SEB, TL, MP, SDS, and LH were responsible for the conception and design of the work. MG, AG, DP, RMF, ACT, DM, SEB, TL, MP, CL, DS, JEM, SDS, KAR, KM, KIB, PF-P, PW, SS, SJM, and LH contributed to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data. MG and AG drafted the manuscript. All authors revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, gave final approval of the manuscript submitted, and agreed to be accountable for the work. LH is the study guarantor. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

  • Funding: No specific funding was received for this project. ACT is funded by a tier 2 Canada Research Chair for knowledge synthesis. TL was funded by grant UG1EY020522 from the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health. CL is funded through a 2020 Canadian Institutes of Health Research project grant (2021-2024). JEM is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council career development fellowship (1143429). SDS is supported by a Canada Research Chair for knowledge translation in child health. SJM was supported by the CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada doctoral scholarship. LH is supported by a Canada Research Chair for knowledge synthesis and translation.

  • Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; AG and MG are employees of the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH); the current work was unrelated to their employment at CADTH and CADTH had no role in the funding, design, or oversight of the work; ACT is an author of PRISMA 2020 and lead author of the PRISMA extension to scoping reviews; DM is co-lead of PRISMA 2020, coauthor of the PRISMA extension to scoping reviews, corresponding author of the EQUATOR guidance of how to develop reporting guidelines, and chair of the EQUATOR Network; SEB and PW are authors of PRISMA 2020; JEM is co-lead of PRISMA 2020; LH is co-author of the PRISMA extension to scoping reviews; all other authors have no competing interests to disclose.

  • The corresponding author (the manuscript’s guarantor) affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

  • Dissemination to participants and related patient and public communities: We plan to disseminate a summary of the study, with links to the manuscript and supplementary files, to participants.

  • Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Data availability statement

All data are presented in the manuscript and supplemental files.

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