This is my first post in ages, in part, inspired by a talk I recently gave on rapid reviews. A small portion of the talk was given over to a usual moan – about those systematic reviewers who used to be very critical (and sometime rude) about rapid reviews and who are now flooding into the rapid review ‘space’ and falling over themselves to codify/control the space.

In part my relative quietness on the rapid reviews was being demotivated by how things were/are developing in relation to rapid reviews. I’m clearly a glass half empty person in this regard as look at how popular they’re becoming (image based on PubMed search for rapid reviews):

 

But, the clarity I have relates to previous thoughts on how to undertake rapid reviews (for instance, Where are we going with rapid reviews? (2018) and Different approaches to rapidity (2016)). The core being there are two types:

• Process: Take the classic systematic review and take short-cuts
• Outcome: What’s the quickest way to arrive at a ‘robust’ answer

The vast majority of the rapid review focus is on the former while my interest is more with the latter. In my mind I always connected a rapid review as providing an answer. It puzzled me why there was no-one asking the question “What’s the quickest way we can provide an answer to support a decision?“. The question was more tilted towards “What’s the best way to provide a rapid review?“

So, the clarity relates to me using ‘review’ and ‘answer’ interchangeably. They are not the same. A ‘process’ rapid review aims to do a reasonably robust review of the literature (that is the primary aim) with a view/hope that it can support decision making. While, an ‘outcome’ rapid review is a different beast and the primary aim is to provide a robust answer (to support a decision); and this might not require a review of all/most of the evidence. 

I feel broadly happy with the distinction but if I’ve mis-characterised things I’d be really interested to hear!