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Scoping Reviews

The Process

  1. Develop & register a Protocol
    • Define objectives and research question(s)
    • Develop eligibility criteria
    • Describe approach to searching, selection, extraction, and reporting
  2. Search the literature
    • Search for evidence
      • Database searches (at least 3 databases, including one multi-disciplinary)
      • Supplementary searching
  3. Analysis (2 or more reviewers)
    • Select the evidence
      • Deduplication
      • Title and abstract screening
      • Full text screening
    • Extract data
    • Analyze/chart data
      • Chart characteristics of studies
      • Code sheet
  4. Report results, implications, and recommendations
    • Present results
    • Summarize evidence, make conclusions, and note implications

 

*Stages from JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis, Chapter 10.

The JBI Manual provides the most rigorous guidance for conducting Scoping Reviews in the health sciences. The video above details their take on the process.

Team makeup

Scoping reviews should have teams of three or more. When gathering your team, consider the following areas of expertise you may want on your team.

  • Evidence synthesis/scoping review methodology
  • Subject-area(s)
  • Search strategies
  • Data analysis/statistics
  • External stakeholders
  • Project management

Identify existing reviews

An important and very helpful part of the process is identifying previously published reviews. Search for both Scoping and Systematic Reviews related to your topic. If you find one with a research question too similar to your own, you may want to tweak your research question. Additionally, searching for existing reviews can:

  1. Give you an idea of what makes a publishable review (especially if you find them in your target journal)
  2. Help identify important key terms for search strategy development
  3. Help identify essential databases for search strategy development
  4. Help identify important journals for hand searching
  5. Help identify important sources of gray literature
  6. Identify relevant papers for inclusion in your review

*Note: be sure to include similar reviews in your introductory materials and be prepared to explain why your review is different

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