Abstract
Background Complex interventions are widely used in health care, public health, education, criminology, social work, business, and welfare. They have increasingly become the subject of systematic reviews and are challenging to effectively report. The Complex Interventions Methods Workgroup developed an extension to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Complex Interventions (PRISMA-CI). Rationale Following the EQUATOR Network guidance for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extensions, this Explanation and Elaboration (EE) document accompanies the PRISMA-CI checklist to promote consistency in reporting of systematic reviews of complex interventions. Discussions The EE document explains the meaning and rationale for each unique PRISMA-CI checklist item and provides examples to assist systematic review authors in operationalizing PRISMA-CI guidance. The Complex Interventions Workgroup developed PRISMA-CI as an important start toward increased consistency in reporting of systematic reviews of complex interventions. Because the field is rapidly expanding, the Complex Interventions Methods Workgroup plans to re-evaluate periodically for the need to add increasing specificity and examples as the field matures.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 51-58 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of Clinical Epidemiology |
Volume | 90 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: This work was funded by the following contracts HHSA290201200004C, HHSA290201200016I, and HHSA290201500011I from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Authors
Keywords
- Complex interventions
- Evidence-based medicine
- Guidance as topic
- Health care interventions
- Publishing standards
- Research design
- Research report standards
- Review literature as topic
- Systematic review