Systematic Reviews

Develop your research question

At the heart of your systematic review is the research question that you are trying to answer. (A systematic review is an in-depth attempt to synthesize the evidence to answer a specific, focused question in a systematic way). It can be challenging to formulate the ‘right’ question for your topic, but the question will guide your search strategy and data analysis, so it’s very important to figure it out early in the process. Ask yourself if your question:

• Is answerable

• Is specific and focused

• Has not (recently) been answered by anyone else

Three types of questions were proposed by Eldredge (2002, p. 10). These types can also be related to more clinical questions:

• Etiology - Factors that predispose a population toward a certain condition 
  (Why does D change with E in population F? Or What causes D to change in population F?).
• Prediction - Likelihood of a condition in a population 
  (Will X affect Y? Or How will X affect Y? Or How will X progress over time?).
• Intervention - A therapeutic measure to address a condition in a population 
  (Will J perform better than K at achieving outcome L?).

Research Question Frameworks

Formulating a research question takes time and your team may go through different versions until settling on the right research question. To help formulate your research question, some research question frameworks are listed below (there are dozen of different types of these frameworks--for a comprehensive overview, see this guide from the University of Maryland: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/evidence-synthesis/databases)

Think of these frameworks as you would for a house or building. A framework is there to provide support and to be a scaffold for the rest of the structure. In the same way, a research question framework can also help structure your evidence synthesis question.  Probably the most common framework is PICO:

PICO for Quantitative Studies

• P       Population/Problem
• I        Intervention/Exposure
• C       Comparison
• O      Outcome

Example: Is gabapentin (intervention), compared to placebo (comparison), effective in decreasing pain symptoms (outcome) in middle aged male amputees suffering phantom limb pain (population)?

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While PICO is a helpful framework for clinical research questions, it may not be the best choice for other types of research questions, especially outside the health sciences.  Here are a few others (for a comprehensive, but concise, overview of the almost 40 different types of research question frameworks, see this review from the British Medical Journal: Rapid review of existing question formulation frameworks)

PICo for Qualitative Studies

• P       Population/Problem
• I         Phenomenon of Interest 
• Co    Context

Example: What are the experiences (phenomenon of interest) of caregivers providing home based care to patients with Alzheimer's disease (population) in Australia (context)?

​​SPICE

• S    Setting
• P   Perspective (for whom)
• I    Intervention/Exposure
• C   Comparison
• E   Evaluation

Example: What are the benefits (evaluation) of a doula (intervention) for low income mothers (perspective) in the developed world (setting) compared to no support (comparison)?

SPIDER

• S     Sample
• PI   Phenomenon of Interest
• D    Design
• E     Evaluation
• R    Study Type

Example: What are the experiences (evaluation) of women (sample) undergoing IVF treatment (phenomenon of interest) as assessed?

Design:  questionnaire or survey or interview

Study Type: qualitative or mixed method