Identifying priority review questions for Cochrane Eyes and Vision: protocol for a priority setting exercise

INTRODUCTION: Cochrane Eyes and Vision (CEV) is an international network of individuals working to prepare, maintain and promote access to systematic reviews of interventions to treat, prevent or diagnose eye diseases or vision impairment. CEV plans to undertake a priority setting exercise to identify systematically research questions relevant to our scope, and to formally incorporate input from a wide range of stakeholders to set priorities for new and updated reviews. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The scope of CEV is broad and our reviews include conditions that are common and have a high global disease burden, for example, cataract and dry eye disease, and conditions that are rare but have a high impact on quality of life and high individual cost such as eye cancer. We plan to focus on conditions prioritised by WHO during the development of the Package of Eye Care Interventions. These conditions were selected based on a combination of data on disease magnitude, healthcare use and expert opinion. We will identify priority review questions systematically by summarising relevant data on research in Eyes and Vision from a range of sources, and compiling a list of 10–15 potential review questions (new and/or updates) for each condition group. We will seek the views of external and internal stakeholders on this list by conducting an online survey. Equity will be a specific consideration. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study has been approved by the ethics committee of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. We will disseminate the findings through Cochrane channels and prepare a summary of the work for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.