# Full Systematic Literature Review PRISMA & PICO in 5 Steps **Source doc**: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/Full Systematic Literature Review PRISMA & PICO in 5 Steps]] > [!question] Lingering Questions > - The presenter's tool names are spoken casually ("Robis," "Ryan") and likely refer to ROBIS/ROBVIS and Rayyan — confirm before citing either tool by name anywhere. > - Does this vault's own deep-read/synthesis pass need an explicit "register the question" step analogous to PROSPERO, given the parallel already drawn in the existing Permanent note on pre-registration? > [!tip] Article Ideas > - A one-page PICO → Boolean → PRISMA cheat sheet for the vault's own research workflows. > [!link] Cross Reference > - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Pre-Registration Is What Separates a Finding From a Story]] — already captures this source's strongest claim (pre-registration as the load-bearing defense against post-hoc bias); this Literature note connects rather than re-derives it. > - [[Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] — the maker/checker parallel (two blind reviewers) is directly relevant to the vault's own synthesis-pass discipline. > [!quote] Vocabulary > - **PICO** — Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome; turns a vague question into a searchable one. Shifts to **PICo** (Context) for qualitative work. > - **PROSPERO** — the prospective registry where a review's question, eligibility, search strategy, and analysis plan are filed before screening starts. > - **Cohen's kappa** — the inter-rater agreement statistic used to check whether two blind reviewers are actually agreeing beyond chance (>0.61 acceptable, >0.8 ideal). ## Author's thesis A credible systematic review is a sequence of pre-committed, documented decisions, not a literature scan dressed up after the fact — PICO frames the question, PROSPERO registers it before looking at the evidence, and PRISMA governs how it gets reported, with each framework guarding a distinct failure mode (vague questions, post-hoc bias, and opaque reporting respectively). ## Key arguments (≤3) 1. **Pre-registration is what proves the review wasn't retrospective** — filing the question, eligibility, and analysis plan before screening starts is what lets a review legitimately come back negative. 2. **PICO turns a vague idea into a searchable, falsifiable question**, with Boolean search construction (synonyms via OR within a concept, concepts combined via AND) making the search itself reproducible and documentable. 3. **Two-reviewer blind screening**, measured by Cohen's kappa, prevents a single reader's prior beliefs from silently resolving ambiguous inclusion calls — roughly 40% disagreement on full-text screening is described as normal, not a sign of failure. ## Claim atoms ### Pre-registration proves a review wasn't retrospective > [!quote] ID:rw_prisma_h1 > "This tells people that it's not retrospective, but in fact you had a plan going in." Where/why: [00:00:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uur5MmjTe5I?t=32), five-step overview — registration is the credibility anchor of evidence synthesis. ### PICO turns a vague idea into a searchable query > [!quote] ID:rw_prisma_h2 > "PICO stands for population, intervention, comparison, and outcome." Where/why: [00:02:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uur5MmjTe5I?t=124), PICO breakdown — a reusable question-framing scaffold; PICo covers qualitative work. ### Two blind reviewers keep screening honest > [!quote] ID:rw_prisma_h3 > "Neither sees each other's calls, but we resolve disagreements by discussion or a third reviewer." Where/why: [00:05:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uur5MmjTe5I?t=310), blind screening and Cohen's kappa — independent verification beats solo judgment, the maker/checker pattern applied to literature triage. ## Permanent candidates - **Pre-commitment separates synthesis from cherry-picking** — this source's strongest claim is **already captured** by [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Pre-Registration Is What Separates a Finding From a Story]] — connect, don't duplicate. No new Permanent note created from this source this run; the PICO and blind-screening atoms are useful Literature-level detail but don't clear the bar as distinct, non-overlapping Permanent claims on their own. ## Processing checklist - [ ] Confirm tool names: "Robis" → ROBIS/ROBVIS, "Ryan" → Rayyan — verify before citing - [ ] Consider whether the synthesis-pass maker/checker loop needs an explicit "second-reviewer" check modeled on blind dual screening - [x] Connect into the relevant MOC — [[3. Resources/MOCs/Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] - [x] Link to existing Permanent note covering the pre-registration claim ## Links - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] — pre-registration and blind dual-review as transferable research-discipline patterns for the vault's own workflows. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Pre-Registration Is What Separates a Finding From a Story]] — evidence-for: this source's central claim, already promoted. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/The Maker Should Not Grade Its Own Homework]] — the two blind reviewers and Cohen's kappa check are the same maker/checker separation applied to literature screening - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Evidence & Claims Literacy MOC]] — home for the question of when a method licenses a conclusion; PICO, PROSPERO and PRISMA are three guards on that question