Vaccine Research in COVID-19: A Living Scoping Review Protocol

Objective:This scoping review will summarize COVID-19 vaccine research activities and describe the extent,range,and nature of evidence in the research of COVID-19 vaccines.Methods:Following Arksey and O’Malley’s framework and the methodological guidance of Joanna Briggs Institute(JBI),we propose a scoping review to summarize the extent,range,and na-ture of evidence in research related to COVID-19 vaccines.Based on research questions developed by us,a comprehensive search will be performed using the PubMed,Cochrane Library,Embase,Web of Science,CNKI,CBM,VIP,and WanFang databases by two independent reviewers.According to our predefined inclusion criteria,pairs of reviewers will independently assess theeligibility of the identified studies from the databases.Following literature selection,pairs of reviewers will extract relevant information related to our research questions.Subsequently,methodological quality and reporting quality of key evidence types(i.e.,random-ized controlled trials,systematic reviews,and meta-analyses)will be evaluated using commonly used tools,if possible.Qualitative synthesis and descriptive statistics will be used to summarize and present the results.In addition,new or updated meta-analysis will be conducted to pool the available data in included primary studies where possible.To track the trends in COVID-19 vaccine research,we plan to update our results approximately every 2-3 months.For preparing this scoping review protocol,we referred to the PRISMA-P checklist,and for reporting the following full texts,we will be following PRISMA-ScR guidelines.Conclusion:We believe that the results of this scoping review on COVID-19 vaccine will contribute to providing foundational knowledge and will have significant value in the research and practice concerning COVID-19 vaccines.The findings will also allow us to identify research gaps on this topic and also help us guide future research on COVID-19 vaccines.