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Scoping Reviews

Library guide for the development of scoping reviews, their associated systematic searches, and required reporting.

Report & write

Write it up

The JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis: the scoping review and summary of the evidence (Chapter 11.3)

Below are some of the requirements for your final paper from the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis. This aligns with PRISMA-ScR, however you should also check specific journal author guidelines if you plan to publish your review. 

  • Title - structured using PCC and including '...: a scoping review'
  • Abstract - a summary of the main features focusing on results
  • Introduction - including objective aligned with PCC
  • Review question/s
  • Inclusion criteria - including types of participants, concept, context, and types of sources of evidence
  • Methods - processes for searching, screening, data extraction, and analysis and presentation of results
  • Results - flow diagram, source of evidence characteristics, findings
  • Discussion - results and limitations of the review
  • Conclusions and recommendations
  • Conflicts of interest, sources of funding and acknowledgements
  • References
  • Appendices - all search strategies, sources excluded after full-text review, data extraction instrument used

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PRISMA-ScR

Note: Your paper must conform to established reporting guidelines.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) are the guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. However the differences between systematic and scoping reviews means some variation from PRISMA is necessary.

To address this, a PRISMA extension for scoping reviews, PRISMA-ScR, has been created to provide reporting guidance for this specific type of knowledge synthesis.

This PRISMA extension was based on PRISMA 2009. The new PRISMA 2020 statement recommends that 'authors report their review in accordance with the recommendations in PRISMA 2020 along with the guidance specific to their extension' (Page et al., 2021, p. 2).

PRISMA-ScR includes a checklist on items that should be reported upon, as well as the rationale and an example for each.