Abstract
Background and Objectives
Identify currently methodological aspects proposed for planning, conducting, and reporting
living evidence (LE) synthesis. Develop a preliminary checklist of key LE synthesis
elements.
Methods
A survey of methodological articles describing or analyzing methods for the design,
conduction, or reporting of LE synthesis.
Results
Twelve methodological articles were identified and analyzed. Key elements were related
to: i) definition of LE and characteristics of LE synthesis, ii) methods and tools
for the living process, iii) new evidence integration (methods and considerations),
iv) updates dissemination and publication, v) revisiting living parameters, and vi)
protocol considerations for LE synthesis.
Conclusion
This survey displays basic methodological concepts that can drive the development
of LE synthesis and identifies specific aspects with opportunities for development.
The potential impact of the LE approach calls for a change in the current evidence
synthesis updating processes to more open, collaborative, transparent, and efficient
systems. LE approaches also challenge journal editors to shift toward more efficient
processes for synthesis update dissemination, which minimizes the risks of reliability
of published information.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 07, 2022
Accepted:
September 30,
2022
Footnotes
Funding: This work is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant (MSCA-IF-EF-ST #894990) to María Ximena Rojas-Reyes.
Competing interests: All the co-authors claimed that they did not have financial conflict of interest.
Declaration of interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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Copyright
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