Background: Predatory publications are academic journal publishers who use unethical business practices, minimal or no peer review or limited editorial oversight to publish journals that are below a minimally accepted standard of quality. These journals are increasing exponentially and have potential to alter results of research syntheses.

Objectives: The authors seek to determine if papers published by a major predatory publisher are being cited in systematic reviews, by whom and under what circumstances.

Methods: Using citation management software, we will download citations for articles published by a known predatory publisher in the medical and health fields. Using forward reference searching, we will determine if these articles are being cited in systematic reviews.

Results and Conclusions: Results are not yet available. While not everything published in predatory journals is fraudulent or otherwise faulty research, determining the extent of predatory journal impact on research syntheses will help determine how widely used these journals are and whether quality control for individual journal articles at the research synthesis level needs more rigour.