The most common framework for developing systematic review questions is called PICO, which stands for Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome. The Population is the group of people or things you are interested in studying. This might be "adolescents with diabetes," "primary school teachers in urban areas," or "smallholder farmers in East Africa." Be as specific as necessary but not overly restrictive. The Intervention is what you want to examine, a treatment, program, policy, or exposure. Examples include "mobile phone-based health reminders," "peer tutoring programs," or "exposure to air pollution." The Comparison is what you are comparing the intervention against. This might be "no intervention," "standard care," "a different teaching method," or sometimes there is no comparison group in your question. The Outcome is what you are measuring or what you hope will change. Examples include "history test scores," "hospital admission rates," "crop yields," or "quality of life measures."

Let us apply PICO to create a sample research question. Suppose you want to know if educational programs about handwashing prevent infectious diseases in African schools. Your PICO would be: Population = primary school children in African countries; Intervention = handwashing education programs; Comparison = no handwashing education or standard hygiene education; Outcome = rates of infectious diseases like diarrhea and respiratory infections. Your systematic review question would be: "Do handwashing education programs reduce infectious disease rates among primary school children in African countries compared to no intervention or standard hygiene education?"

For qualitative research questions or when PICO does not fit well, you can use alternative frameworks. The SPIDER framework is useful for qualitative systematic reviews and stands for Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, and Research type. For example, if you wanted to understand women's experiences with maternal healthcare, you might use SPIDER: Sample = pregnant women in rural areas; Phenomenon of Interest = experiences accessing prenatal care; Design = qualitative studies; Evaluation = women's perspectives and reported barriers; Research type = interviews or focus group studies. Another framework is PEO, which stands for Population, Exposure, and Outcome, and works well for questions about risk factors or experiences rather than interventions.

While the following optional, you may consider registering your outline (or protocol). Many systematic reviews register their protocol in advance in a public database called PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews). Registering your protocol serves several purposes. It prevents duplication by letting other researchers know you are already working on this topic. It increases transparency because anyone can see what methods you planned to use before you started. It also holds you accountable to follow your stated methods. To register in PROSPERO, you visit their website, create an account, and complete a form describing your planned systematic review. Registration is free and typically takes a few hours to complete. Once registered, you receive a unique registration number that you should reference in your final systematic review paper. Again, this is optional, and not required form you as an ARPL scholar.

This paragraph is there for the sake of letting you know about something called PROSPERO.