Strengthening the evidence base in suicide prevention: Systematic reviews and registered reports

We have come a long way in our understanding of suicide and how to prevent it, but there is still much that we don’t know. Part of the reason for this is that our research is not always as good as it could be. We sometimes use suboptimal methods, we don’t always describe what we have done in a transparent and replicable fashion, and we’re not always great at synthesizing the evidence from multiple studies in a way that allows us to take the field forward. Of course, there are many, many exceptional pieces of research too, but sometimes these are not given the attention they deserve.

In 2020, Crisis is introducing two new article formats that are explicitly designed to strengthen the evidence base in suicide prevention. These are Systematic Reviews and Registered Reports. Both are described below, with greater detail being provided about registered reports on the assumption that readers and authors may be less familiar with this type of article than systematic reviews. More detail about the specific requirements for both systematic reviews and registered reports can be found by following the Instructions to Authors link on our home page at https://www.hogrefe.com/j/crisis