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The PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) is a new revised guideline for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Although the primary focus is on reporting of systematic reviews of randomised trials PRISMA can be also used for reporting of systematic reviews of other types of research, particularly evaluations of interventions.

PRISMA supersedes the existing QUOROM Statement; journals and other organisations are encouraged to update their instructions and resources and refer authors of systematic reviews and meta-analyses to the new PRISMA guidance. BioMed Central was one of the first publishing groups that has already taken an action in this direction (read more).

The new PRISMA checklist differs in several respects from the QUOROM checklist and these changes are clearly highlighted in the paper (1).

There is a dedicated website for PRISMA; the site provides the history of the guideline development, downloadable 27-item checklist and flow diagram templates, references of all PRISMA papers and the full text of the Explanation and Elaboration paper (2), which explains the meaning and rationale for each checklist item and includes examples of good reporting.  


References:

The PRISMA guideline papers have been published simultaneously in several journals:

1.    Shorter (‘Statement’) paper is appearing in Annals of Internal Medicine, PLoS Medicine, BMJ, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Open Medicine

Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, The PRISMA Group (2009) Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement. PLoS Med 6(7): e1000097. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097 (full text)

2.    Longer (‘Explanation and Elaboration’) paper is appearing in Annals of Internal Medicine, PLoS Medicine, BMJ

Liberati A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gotzsche PC, et al. (2009) The PRISMA Statement for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Studies That Evaluate Health Care Interventions: Explanation and Elaboration. PLoS Med 6(7): e1000100. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000100  (full text)

PRISMA press release (from OHRI newsroom, 21 July 2009)