Introduction: In April 2024, the Cass Review released its final report regarding gender identity services for children and youth in the U.K. The report, based partly on the outcomes of six systematic reviews, has been used to justify restrictions on a wide swath of gender-affirming health care services and has been broadly criticized both by clinicians and 2S&LGBTQ+ advocates. As librarians striving to advance best practices in evidence synthesis research and evidence-informed care, and as individuals invested in promoting social justice, we wanted to bring our own critical lens to the Cass systematic reviews by critiquing their search strategies and related processes.
Methods: We began by examining the literature and reviewing existing tools and approaches to critically appraise evidence synthesis reviews and/or search strategies. We then developed a new checklist incorporating elements of key resources such as PRESS, MECCIR, AMSTAR 2, and guidance created by and for librarians. We each independently created a draft checklist and then collaborated on multiple iterations before completing a version which we will pilot test in Winter 2025 and then finalize.
Results: As of June 2025, we will share the results of using our tool to critically appraise the search methods from at least one Cass systematic review.
Discussion: While this new appraisal tool is primarily focused on searches within the Cass publications, we hope it can be applied more broadly to other evidence synthesis reviews, particularly those impacting other vulnerable populations.