Back to: Prepare Your Systematic Review Topic

Before you move forward with your team, it’s important to make sure no one has a clear interest in swaying the results of your systematic review.

That’s why you need to ask all of your team members to disclose their potential conflicts of interest.

Conflicts of interest can be financial: would your team members or their close relatives earn or lose money as a result of your systematic review? Are any of your team members receiving funding from a company that would benefit from the results of your review?

Conflicts of interest can also be intellectual: Do any of your team members have strongly held beliefs about a topic that will be addressed in your systematic review?

If someone has a very clear conflict of interest, you’ll have to exclude them from your team. If the conflict is less clear, just find ways to manage and document that potential conflict.