Deciding on your question
A systematic Review seeks to answer a focused question - if your topic of research is too broad, you can be overwhelmed with an unmanageable number of results.
The Spice framework below might help you identify the key concepts within your research question. This can also help as you start to consider what keywords you will need to use in your database search strategy.
SPICE
S - Setting Where does the research happen? Settings can include schools, hospitals, residential care, workplaces, homes, prisons or community or online spaces
P - Population Who is your study focused on? Is your population decided by age, gender, ethnicity, education level, profession or any combination of these factors? A dietary change?
I - Intervention What are you investigating the effect of? Is it use of a technology? Participation in an educational, training or therapeutic program? Membership of a group?
C - Comparator How will you measure the effectiveness of the intervention? What are you comparing to? Do you have a control?
E - Evaluation Appraising the value, validity or effectiveness of the intervention.
Next step: Creating a protocol
