Table 4.
Proposed stakeholders, actions, and potential benefits for supporting adherence to PRISMA-P
| Stakeholder | Proposed action | Potential benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Funders | Promote or mandate adherence to PRISMA-P or use PRISMA-P as a template for systematic review proposals for grant applications | Improved quality, completeness, and consistency of systematic review proposal submissions |
| Standardized protocol content will improve peer review efficiency and investigator understanding of requirements | ||
| Systematic review authors/groups/organizations | Use/adhere to PRISMA-P during protocol development | Improved quality, completeness, and consistency of protocol content |
| Enables reviewers to anticipate and avoid future changes to review methods (i.e., outcomes) | ||
| Increased awareness of minimum content for protocol reporting | ||
| Improved completeness of reporting of completed reviews | ||
| PROSPERO (and other review registries) | Encourage the development of PRISMA-P-based protocols | Improved quality of registry entries |
| Improved consistency across registry entries, protocols, and systematic reviews | ||
| Practice guideline developers | Use PRISMA-P to gauge the completeness of protocols and facilitate detection of selective reporting when considering reviews for guideline inclusion | Enables easy comparison across protocols, registry entries, and completed systematic reviews |
| Policymakers | Advocate use of PRISMA-P by those funding and carrying out systematic reviews | May yield better quality, more complete, and more consistent reviews to inform decision-making |
| Journal editors | Encourage compliance to PRISMA-P for authors submitting protocols for publication | Improved quality, completeness, and consistency of protocols over those published in journals not endorsing PRISMA-P |
| Offer PRISMA-P as a template to assist in protocol writing for publication | Increased efficiency in protocol peer and author understanding of journal requirements | |
| Improved transparency and interpretation of reviews by readers | ||
| Educators | Use PRISMA-P as a training tool | Simplified teaching and grading of protocols |
| Encourage adherence in students submitting protocols for coursework | Improved quality, completeness, and consistency of protocol content | |
| Students | Develop protocols for coursework or research using PRISMA-P | Improved understanding of the minimum protocol content |
| Well-trained systematic reviewer going into the workforce |