Information size requirement
The information size is the number of participants required in a meta-analysis to reliably detect an intervention effect. This may be approximated by the sample size that would be needed for a single randomised controlled trial to detect the hypothesised intervention effect. For reviews with binary outcomes, please provide an estimate of the information size in your protocol, by calculating the sample size for a single RCT with 90% power at the 5% significance level. Please specify if your calculation is the total number of participants, or the number of participants required in each intervention group.
This information should be inserted in the Methods section, for each outcome.
Incorporating GRADE evidence into your review
Pre-submission checklists for your Protocol or Review
Searching for studies
Authors will receive one set of search results to complete their review. The search for studies will be completed following publication of the protocol. Authors must screen the search results within one month of receipt and inform the editorial team of the number of potentially eligible studies. Based on the number of potentially eligible studies for inclusion into the review, the editorial team and authors will decide on a submission date for the full review.
As a general rule of thumb, the submission date will be based on allocating two weeks per included study. A review with two studies would be expected to be submitted within one month, while a review with 10 studies would be expected within five months. The editorial team is available to answer authors' questions while they complete their review, in order that the submission deadline can be met.
For reviews registered before 2014: It is now Group policy to run a pre-publication search while the review is at peer review so as to keep the search date as close to the publication date as possible. If no studies are found, we only need to edit the search date and numbers throughout the text. If studies are found, they are inserted into Awaiting Classification and a note put in the text to state that they will be included in the update – the publication of the review will not be delayed due to this extra search.
Funding acknowledgement
The Cochrane Injuries Group editorial team is funded by the UK National Institutes of Health Research. This funding enables the Group to accept submissions from authors without requiring an article processing charge. The following statement will be published in every manuscript:
'This project was supported by the UK National Institute for Health Research, through Cochrane Infrastructure funding to the Cochrane Injuries Group. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Systematic Reviews Programme, NIHR, NHS or the Department of Health.'