| Authors and contributors |
Any researcher with interest in the topic |
Usually seasoned authors with vast experience in the subject |
Any researcher with interest in the topic; information facilitators as contributors |
| Registration |
Not required |
Not required |
Registration of the protocol with the PROSPERO registry (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/) is required to avoid redundancies |
| Reporting standards |
Not available |
Not available |
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standard (http://www.prisma-statement.org/) |
| Search strategy |
Searches through credible databases to retrieve items supporting and opposing the innovative ideas |
Searches through multidisciplinary and specialist databases to comprehensively cover the subject |
Strict search strategy through evidence-based databases to retrieve certain type of articles (e.g., reports on trials and cohort studies) with inclusion and exclusion criteria and flowcharts of searches and selection of the required articles |
| Structure |
Sections to cover general and specific knowledge on the topic, research design to test the hypothesis, and its ethical implications |
Sections are chosen by the authors, depending on the topic |
Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion (IMRAD) |
| Search tools for analyses |
Not available |
Not available |
Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome (Study Design) (PICO, PICOS) |
| References |
Limited number |
Extensive list |
Limited number |
| Target journals |
Handful of hypothesis journals |
Numerous |
Numerous |
| Publication ethics issues |
Unethical statements and ideas in substandard journals |
‘Copy-and-paste’ writing in some reviews |
Redundancy of some nonregistered systematic reviews |
| Citation impact |
Low (with some exceptions) |
High |
Moderate |
