Editors: Julian PT Higgins and Sally Green.
Key points
Cochrane reviews have a highly structured format, and compliance with this format is facilitated by the use of RevMan. This chapter describes what an author is expected to include, and what a reader may expect to find, in each component of a Cochrane protocol or review;
The chapter also serves as a guide to much of the Handbook, containing links to other chapters where further discussion of the methodological issues can be found;
A ‘Review information’ (or ‘Protocol information’) section includes details of authors and important dates associated with maintaining and updating the review;
The main text should be succinct and readable, so that someone who is not an expert in the area can understand it. The text of a protocol ends after the Methods section;
A ‘Studies and references’ section provides a framework for classifying included, excluded and ongoing studies, as well as those for which insufficient information is available, and other references;
Tables of characteristics of studies allow the systematic presentation of key descriptors of the studies considered for the review;
A ‘Data and analyses’ section has a hierarchical structure, allowing data from included studies to be placed within particular subgroups of studies, which are in turn within meta-analyses of particular outcomes, which are in turn within particular intervention comparisons. For each meta-analysis, forest plots and funnel plots can be generated within RevMan;
Further tables, figures and appendices can be included to supplement the in-built tables.
4.2 Title and review information (or protocol information)