Paper 2: Performing rapid reviews.

Area of Science:

• Health Policy Research
• Evidence Synthesis Methodologies

Background:

• Health policy decisions often require rapid evidence synthesis due to time and resource constraints.
• Rapid reviews serve as a practical alternative to comprehensive systematic reviews for policy-makers.
• Ensuring the rigor of rapid review methods is crucial for reliable policy development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To summarize current methods and practices for conducting rapid reviews.
• To present key considerations and options for guiding methodological choices in rapid reviews.
• To provide interim guidance for researchers conducting rapid reviews.

Main Methods:

• Stakeholder engagement and clear research protocols are essential for focused rapid reviews.
• Tailoring literature searches, study screening, data extraction, and risk-of-bias assessments are key streamlining strategies.
• Descriptive synthesis is commonly used, often with single reviewer involvement and verification, alongside standardized reporting.

Main Results:

• Early and ongoing engagement with review requesters is paramount for successful rapid reviews.
• Methodological choices in rapid reviews should be tailored to the specific topic and available resources.
• Streamlined approaches, such as single reviewer use and descriptive synthesis, expedite the review process.

Conclusions:

• Transparent methodological choices, informed by stakeholders, are vital for the utility of rapid reviews.
• The impact of streamlined methods on review conclusions requires further investigation.
• Interim guidance is proposed due to the lack of internationally accepted standards for rapid reviews.