Scoping Reviews of the Microbiology Literature: Methods and Payoffs

A scoping review is an approach to evidence synthesis. Its purpose is to provide an overview of the available research evidence without producing a summary answer to a discrete research question. Scoping reviews can be useful for answering expansive questions and identifying information relevant to a given research topic. The utility of scoping reviews is also to inform a systematic review, a knowledge synthesis process that aims to collect, and analyze all evidence that answers a specific research question. Scoping reviews are broadly depicted in the literature; however, the use of scoping review analysis techniques to rigorously prepare a clinical microbiology evidence base for comparison of multicomponent quality improvement interventions has not been explored. Recently, a pilot approach was published, and that approach is summarized here. It combined knowledge synthesis methods to (i) provide a meta-analytic route forward for a systematic review and meta-analysis (SRMA) and (ii) inform the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM's) approach to the production of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). Further, a generalizable approach for other SRMA investigators who are similarly challenged by an evidence base that involves complex interventions was modeled by an ASM team re-exploring the impact of rapid diagnostics. While the approach is generalized, it is not intended to be prescriptive. The approach may frame or inform further conversation within the clinical microbiology community of practice and anyone reading the ASM CPGs. This article details a fundamental challenge to addressing “intervention complexity” in the clinical microbiology evidence base in the early stages of the CPG process.