Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions

This is an archived version. For the current version, please go to training.cochrane.org/handbook/current

Version 6.4, 2023

Senior Editors: Julian Higgins1, James Thomas2
Associate Editors: Jacqueline Chandler3, Miranda Cumpston4,5, Tianjing Li6, Matthew Page4, Vivian Welch7

Part 1: About Cochrane Reviews

I.     Introduction
II.    Planning a Cochrane Review
III.   Reporting the review
IV.   Updating the review
V.    Overviews of Reviews

 

Part 2: Core methods

1.    Starting a review
2.    Determining the scope and questions
3.    Inclusion criteria & grouping for synthesis
4.    Searching & selecting studies
5.    Collecting data
6.    Effect measures
7.    Bias and conflicts of interest
8.    Risk of bias in randomized trials
9.    Preparing for synthesis
10.  Meta-analyses
11.  Network meta-analyses
12.  Synthesis using other methods
13.  Bias due to missing results
14.  ‘Summary of findings’ tables & GRADE
15.  Interpreting results

Part 3: Specific perspectives in reviews

16.  Equity
17.  Intervention complexity
18.  Patient-reported outcomes
19.  Adverse effects
20.  Economic evidence
21.  Qualitative evidence

 

Part 4: Other topics

22.  Prospective approaches
23.  Variants on randomized trials
24.  Including non-randomized studies
25.  Risk of bias in non-randomized studies
26.  Individual participant data

1 University of Bristol, UK
2 EPPI-Centre, UCL Social Research Institute, University College London, UK
3 Wessex Academic Health Science Network, UK 
4 School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Australia
5 Cochrane Public Health; School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Australia
6 Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine & Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus USA; Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
7 The Campbell Collaboration; Bruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada; School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, Canada. 

Information on how to cite this Handbook is available here.

For any queries on the Handbook, contact support@cochrane.org.