PP86 Systematic Review Toolbox 2.0: Rebuilding Toolbox With A Novel Taxonomy To Classify And Share Evidence Synthesis Tools

Introduction

Developed in 2014, the Systematic Review (SR) Toolbox has played a critical role in helping researchers to identify appropriate tools to support systematic reviews. Since the resource was launched, the systematic review and wider evidence synthesis process has evolved considerably. The way in which the SR Toolbox originally classified tools at launch had become dated. We updated and rebuilt the SR Toolbox in 2022 underpinned by a novel taxonomy to reflect the latest review and evidence synthesis landscape.

Methods

All guidance and software tools contained within the SR Toolbox were manually extracted in February 2022. Information contained from tool records were extracted by a single reviewer into an Excel spreadsheet, with a second reviewer checking a sample. The spreadsheet was translated to a Microsoft Access database underpinned with a new taxonomy to reflect the expansion of evidence synthesis methods and new review types (or ‘families’). A brief analysis of the remapped tools was conducted to identify current gaps in software and guidance support for evidence synthesis. A new user interface was also developed.

Results

The updated version of the SR Toolbox was launched 13 May 2022. At that time, the resource included records on 235 software tools and 112 guidance tools. Regarding ‘review families’, most software tools (n = 223) and guidance documents (n = 78) were applicable to supporting systematic reviews. Fewer software (n = 66) and guidance (n = 22) tools were applicable to reviews of reviews, while qualitative reviews were less served by guidance documents (n = 19). In terms of ‘review stages’, most guidance documents were associated with quality assessment (n = 70), while most software was related to searching (n = 84) and synthesis (n = 82). To-date, there is a lack of software (n = 2) and guidance (n = 3) tools to support stakeholder engagement.

Conclusions

The SR Toolbox has received a significant update to ensure that tools are classified and shared based on the latest systematic review and evidence synthesis methods. As part of the update, analysis of the contents of the toolbox highlighted potential gaps in tool support for certain review types/stages.