Vaccine Research in COVID-19: A Living Scoping Review Protocol

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global public problem and a pandemic event. Since the epidemic outbreak, deaths and cumulative confirmed positive cases have continued rising rapidly worldwide. Vaccines are regarded as one of the most effective means of preventing and controlling an epidemic. With the spread of COVID-19, a large number amount of literature on vaccines has been published recently. There is a pressing need to map the research activities of COVID-19 vaccines.Methods: Following Arksey and O’Malley’s framework and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodological guidance, a scoping review is proposed to summarize the extent/breadth, range, and nature of evidence in research related to COVID-19 vaccines. Based on the research questions we have developed by ours, a comprehensive search will be performed in Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI, CBM, VIP, and WanFang databases by two independent reviewers. According to our predefined inclusion criteria, pairs of reviewers will independently assess the eligibility of identified studies from the databases. Following literature selection, pairs of reviewers will extract relevant information related to our research questions. The methodological quality and reporting quality of key evidence types (i.e., randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses) will be evaluated using commonly used tools, if possible. Qualitative synthesis and descriptive statistics will be used to summarize and present the results. In addition, new or updated meta-analysis will be conducted to pool the data available in included primary studies where possible. To track the trends in COVID-19 vaccines research, we plan to update our results every 2~3 months. Preparation of this scoping review protocol referred to PRISMA-P checklist, and the reporting of the following full-text will be using PRISMA-ScR guidelines.Discussion: We believe the results of this scoping review on COVID-19 vaccine will contribute to provide foundational knowledge, and have significant value for the research and practice of COVID-19 vaccines. The findings will also allow us to identify research gaps on this topic and help to guide the future research of COVID-19 vaccines well.