Guidelines for conducting rapid reviews in psychology research

Various guidelines are available to conduct rapid reviews. However, inconsistencies regarding the methodological practices are prevalent. Following a literature review process, the following databases were searched for guidelines on conducting rapid reviews in psychology: Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Directory of Open Access Journals, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, MEDLINE, PsycArticles, PsycInfo, and SocINDEX. Seventeen articles were included and thematically analysed into eight steps: (i) Stating the aim of the rapid review and formulating the research question; (ii) Setting the eligibility criteria and inclusion and exclusion criteria; (iii) Formulating the search strategy; (iv) Screening and selection of literature; (v) Extraction of data from included literature; (vi) Quality and risk of bias assessment of included literature; (vii) Synthesis and analysis of the included literature; and (viii) Stating the limitations of the rapid review. The eight steps serve as the proposed guideline to conduct rapid reviews in psychology research.