Rationale
Depression and anxiety are among the leading causes of disability worldwide and place considerable burden on individuals, families, healthcare systems, and society. Collaborative care is a complex healthcare intervention that typically involves a multi-professional team, a structured management plan, scheduled follow-up, and enhanced communication between healthcare professionals.
The current Cochrane review, published in 2012, included 79 randomized controlled trials involving more than 24,000 participants. Since publication, healthcare delivery models have evolved substantially. Collaborative care has become more widely implemented internationally, digital technologies have become increasingly integrated into care pathways, and healthcare systems have accumulated significant experience in delivering multidisciplinary mental health care. A substantial body of additional evidence is therefore likely to be available.
Call
We are looking for author teams to take on a new Cochrane review in this area.
A new protocol will be required. Author teams should carefully consider whether the scope, intervention definitions, and comparisons used in the original review reflect the most clinically useful and decision-relevant approach.
Collaborative care is a broad and evolving concept, and teams should provide a clear rationale for how the intervention will be defined and operationalized within the review. Consideration should also be given to whether the original comparisons remain appropriate, or whether alternative comparisons better reflect contemporary models of mental healthcare delivery.
The successful team should demonstrate expertise in systematic review methods and ideally have experience in mental health, primary care, health services research, implementation science, or complex interventions. Given the likely diversity of collaborative care models, teams should outline how they will address variation in intervention components, settings, healthcare systems, and patient populations.
Proposals should include a clear analytical framework and justification for planned comparisons, subgroup analyses, and methods for addressing heterogeneity.
We particularly welcome applications from teams that include early career researchers and researchers based in low- and middle-income countries, recognizing the importance of developing capacity and ensuring diverse perspectives in evidence synthesis.
Timeline: the team taking this on should be ready to begin work within the next quarter with a protocol produced by Q1 2027 and full review by Q1 2028.
What support is available?
There are no funds to pay authors to conduct these reviews. However, Cochrane can offer the following:
- Commissioning support. Working with the Commissioning Editor means expedited proposal acceptance and responses to queries throughout review production.
- Search support. For those who need it Cochrane Information Specialists can run the searches and (capacity dependent) may be able to use machine learning to reduce some of the screening burden.
- Support from Covidence. For priority intervention reviews, Cochrane can refer authors for Covidence premium support. This service involves support from an advisor within Covidence to facilitate data extraction and transfer (capacity dependent).
- Pre-submission support. If required, one of our Evidence Synthesis Development Editors can perform a pre-submission check about 4–6 weeks prior to submission. If you would like this service, you will need to request it several months before you intend on submitting and it will be provided on a first come, first serve, capacity basis.
- Cochrane Engage. Our online Engage platform can be used to find volunteers for various aspects of the work including volunteer co-authors.
Application
To apply, please send an expression of interest to the Commissioning Editor (rparker@cochrane.org) by 31st March 2027 including:
- Proposal form [.docx]
- Analysis plan:
- Full list of summary of findings table outcomes
- Comparisons
- Subgroup analyses planned
- Sensitivity analyses planned
- Short description of suitability of the author team for the proposal – 300 words max.
Panel for assessment
- Commissioning Editor
- Deputy Editor-in-Chief
- Additional editorial staff and experts from the Cochrane Collaboration as required
Producing an impactful review
This review has been commissioned because we think the topic is important and we think there is sufficient new evidence to support a meaningful synthesis. But until we run the search, we don’t know that the synthesis will be meaningful and impactful. If you run your search and discover that there isn't much evidence to synthesize, please reconnect with me and we will explore whether it is worth continuing with a full Cochrane systematic review or not. It may be that your work can be written up as a shorter piece of work for a different journal such as Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods.
