The Cochrane Skin Group
Proposal for a new Cochrane Review
Please complete and email this form to [email protected]
[Laura Prescott, Managing Editor, Cochrane Skin Group,
Centre of Evidence Based Dermatology, The University of Nottingham, King’s Meadow Campus,
Room A103, Lenton Lane, Nottingham, NG7 2NR.
Tel: +44 115 846 8627/Fax: +44 115 846 8618]
Authors completing this form must note that
they are required to read and follow
The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions when preparing
their review. This can be found on http://www.cochrane-handbook.org.
The latest version is Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]
Proposed Title (Using Standard Format)
(Try to include the word ‘for’ in the title; for example, ‘[Intervention] FOR [health problem]’; ‘[Intervention A] versus
[intervention B] FOR [health problem]’]
Contact Author Name
(This is the person taking primary responsibility for liaising with the Skin Group editorial base. This person’s contact
details will be published in the review.)
Lead Author Name
(This is the person who leads the author team of the protocol and review. They allocate tasks, co-ordinate the work of
the team, and they are responsible for ensuring the published review is subsequently updated. In most Skin Group
reviews, the same person takes on the roles of Contact and Lead author.)
Please write a sentence to explain your motivation for wanting to do this review
Brief description of proposal
Please refer to the Handbook Chapter 5: Defining the review question and developing criteria for including studies
(a) Objective
(b) Rationale for review
(c) Types of study – please could you also state from your clinical knowledge of this subject how many
studies, approximately, you expect to include within the review, i.e. do you think it will be more or less than
twenty?
See section 5.5 of the Handbook entitled ‘Defining types of study’
(d) Participants
See section 5.2 of the Handbook entitled ‘Defining types of participants: which people and populations?’
(e) Interventions and specific comparisons to be made
See section 5.3 of the Handbook entitled ‘Defining types of interventions: which comparisons to make?’
(f) Outcomes
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See section 5.4 of the Handbook entitled ‘Defining types of outcomes: which outcome measures are most important?’
Cochrane Skin supports the use of core outcome sets whenever they are available. Please look for any core
outcomes in your field of interest and use them in your review. These do not have to be your primary outcomes, but
should be included if available. If a core outcome set exists and you choose not to use it you will need to justify your
decision.
Please visit the COMET (Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials) website www.comet-initiative.org and
read the following paper, ‘Can a core outcome set improve the quality of systematic reviews? – a survey of the Coordinating Editors of Cochrane review groups’, which details the importance of core outcome sets in systematic
reviews: http://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1745-6215-14-21
With particular regard to skin:
 The HOME (Harmonising Outcome Measures for Eczema) initiative is bringing together people from all
over the world in order to agree a core set of outcome measures for use in future eczema trials.

The Cochrane Skin Group Outcomes Research Initiative (CSG-COUSIN) was launched in 2015 with the
aim of developing core outcome measures in trials for skin diseases. See CSG-COUSIN for more details
on the project groups that are being developed. If a core outcome set is being developed in your area
please contact the group lead to get some interaction and input on relevant outcomes for your review.
What will be your primary time point, which is the time point you will report on when your outcomes are measured
at multiple time points? Please see MECIR C18:
(g) Other information relevant to this proposal
Review author team and area of expertise
Please read the ‘Requirements of the composition of a CSG authoring team’ found here:
http://skin.cochrane.org/titles, and indicate below how your team fits the criteria.
Please note: Each person named as an author must make a substantial contribution to the conception and
design or analysis and interpretation of the data in the review (see Handbook section 4.2.2.).
Name, Job title &
Institution
Contact
person:
Author:
Author:
Author:
Author:
Consumer:
Statistician:
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Relevant background & any
Cochrane experience
Responsibilities*
*Please indicate which author/s will take responsibility for the following:
 Draft the protocol
 Obtain copies of studies
 Select which studies to include (at least 2 authors working independently with a third available to settle
disagreements)
 Extract data from studies (at least 2 authors working independently with a third available to settle
disagreements)
 Enter data into RevMan
 Carry out the analysis
 Interpret the analysis
 Draft the final review
 Update the review
Our Information Specialist will help you develop and run the search strategy.
Do you have good working knowledge of the MECIR (Methodological Expectations of
Cochrane Intervention Reviews) standards?
http://methods.cochrane.org/sites/default/files/public/uploads/mecir_printed_booklet_final.pdf
Do you or any of your co-authors have any interests in this topic that could be perceived as
conflicts of interest?
Cochrane Reviews should be free of any real or perceived bias introduced by the receipt of any benefit in cash or kind,
any hospitality, or any subsidy derived from any source that may have or be perceived to have an interest in the
outcome of the review. Please see the following section of the Editorial and Publishing Policy Resource for Cochrane’s
rules and requirements: http://community.cochrane.org/editorial-and-publishing-policy-resource/ethicalconsiderations/conflicts-interest-and-cochrane-reviews
Please can authors list any potential Conflicts of Interest here:
When the Title Registration has been completed, we will prepare the protocol document for you and send each author
an individual ‘Declaration of Interest’ form, which they will have to complete immediately.
Is this review the subject of specific funding and/or does it need to be finished within a
specific time-frame? If yes, please give details, including the date that the review needs to
be completed, as required by the funder. (Please note that preparing a full Cochrane review typically takes
2-3 years. As a result, a Cochrane review is not suitable for an MSc project).
Has the review already been carried out or published?
If yes, where has it been published?
Dissemination of your review
As it is now a requirement of the Skin Group’s funders to have a well-thought-out dissemination plan for each Cochrane
review, we will not be able to publish your review until you have completed and returned by email a dissemination
strategy. We will discuss this with you when your review is getting near to publication.
Co-publication & wider publication
The support of the Cochrane Skin Group in preparing your review is conditional upon your agreement to publish the
protocol, finished review and subsequent updates in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. By completing
this form you undertake to publish this review in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (concurrent publication
in other journals may be allowed in certain circumstances with prior permission from the CRG).
Cochrane reviews must remain free for dissemination in any and all media, without restriction from any of them. To
ensure this, Cochrane authors grant The Cochrane Collaboration worldwide licences for these activities, and do not
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sign over exclusive copyright to any journal or other publisher. In the case of co-publication, the Cochrane systematic
review should be published either before, or at the same time as, its publication in other journals.
Are you are planning to co-publish your review*?
If so, please give details of when and where……………………………………………………………
Please see the ‘Co-publication’ section of the Cochrane Editorial and Publishing Policy Resource and specifically the
sub-section entitled ‘Post-publication’: publishing in a journal after publication in the CDSR’.
*We would suggest you think at this stage about publishing a summary article of your Cochrane
Skin Group review in either the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (JAAD) or the
British Journal of Dermatology (BJD) with which the Skin Group has co-publishing agreements
because they aid dissemination of your work to a wider audience. JAAD has a section called ‘from
the Cochrane Library’ and the BJD will publish up to six abridged versions of Skin Group reviews
each year.
An example of a Cochrane review co-published in the BJD.
An example of a Cochrane review co-published in the JAAD.
Please contact the CSG for further information if you cannot link to the articles.
Thank you for completing this form.
For internal use by the editorial base
Was a ‘Title Suggestion’ (TSF) form completed for this title?
If ‘yes’ use the TSF to assess potential size of review
If ‘no’ then CSG needs to complete the TSF form
………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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