The Intervention Synthesis Questions (InSynQ) checklist and guide for developing and reporting the questions addressed in systematic reviews of interventions, consists of 11 items that cover various aspects of the synthesis questions, including the specification of the synthesis questions (including the grouping of interventions, populations and outcomes; specification of comparisons; methodological groupings) and the role of groups in the synthesis (e.g. for pairwise comparisons, structuring text or tables, exploring possible causes of variation in the effects of the intervention, sensitivity analyses).
The InSynQ checklist was developed as part of a collaborative programme of work aimed at delivering practical resources to help authors and editors translate guidance from the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions into practice.
May 2023: Cochrane endorsed the Intervention Synthesis Questions (InSynQ) checklist as optional for prospective authors following a recommendation from the Methods Executive, which was informed by the relevant Methods Group, Cochrane's Methods Support and Review Development Team, a Cochrane Review Group representative and the Methods Executive representative on Cochrane's Editorial Board.
Key resources:
- InSynQ official webpage, which includes:
- Full guidance on how to use the InSynQ checklist and guide.
- The checklist (available as a 2-pages document).
- Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions, in particular:
- The study centric data management and analysis collection on the Cochrane Training website.
- Methods Support Web clinics:
- "Considering scope at the review planning stage" (June 2023).