Guide for Developing a Cochrane Protocol - Cochrane Public Health ...

Filling out the protocol template
This document provides advice on what to include in each of the sections presented to review
authors in a RevMan protocol template. The headings described below will align with the set
headings of the protocol template. The advice reflects CPHG editorial policy and following these
guiding principles should ensure fewer modifications are requested at editorial revision stage.
See Appendix 2 for an overview of the stages each review goes through prior to publication. You
should also refer to Chapter 4 of the Cochrane Handbook as you complete the protocol. This
document does not repeat information in the Cochrane Handbook but rather provides
supplementary material specific to CPHG requirements.
Background
Description of the condition
This section should describe the condition or issue that the intervention/s under review are
aiming to address, including information on the historical, (and perhaps political), social,
economic, geographical and biological perspectives of the problem or issue so as to set a context
for the review. This will help to establish the rationale for the review and explain the importance
of the questions being asked. It may be appropriate to change this heading to ‘Description of the
Issue’.
Description of the intervention
Define all terms and interventions clearly and try to set a tone that does not pre-judge the value
of the intervention (i.e. the likely effectiveness of the intervention/s). Provision of examples of
interventions and their components here will help the reader gain a better understanding of the
interventions the authors refer to thereafter in the “Types of Interventions” of the Methods
section. The complexity of the intervention in seeking to address the problem or issue (especially
if it is delivered in many different contexts, using different methods and tools or includes many
interventions to meet the desired outcome/s) needs to be acknowledged, even if the review is
only looking at a component of the problem or issue. Areas of uncertainty about the intervention
and issues that may be controversial or the subject of public concern should be highlighted. While
this section may require you to cover technicalities of the intervention, it is important to write
this clearly and in plain language to aid reader comprehension. We recommend including
definitions of key concepts in this section.
How the intervention might work
In this section identify the theoretical underpinnings and refer to literature that identifies a
potential pathway of effect between intervention and outcomes. You might like to include a logic
model here which shows the connections between determinants of health, interventions and
outcomes. Logic models can also help to identify the interventions of interest and important
outcomes, or provide a logical rationale for why only a component of an intervention is being
reviewed (and point to where other reviews may need to be carried out to complete the
evidence picture). The following diagram from the published protocol for Community-based
Last updated: 24 November 2011 - 4 -