Systematic Reviews

In Step 4 you will screen the articles found with the search strategies to decide if they are meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria (eligibility criteria) you decided on in the beginning of the project. The articles in your systematic review must go through two rounds of screening.

1. Title/Abstract Screening:
   • Conducted by two individuals
   • Review titles and abstracts to check for eligibility based on initial criteria. 
   • Do not be alarmed if you find yourself excluding a lot in this stage of screening, in this stage it is common for 90% of the articles found in the search to be excluded.

   • Resolve conflicts based on pre-defined protocol, either through discussion or a third screener.

2. Full-text screening:
   • Obtain full texts of articles pass in the title/abstract screening. As stated in the Memorandum of Agreement (MOU), librarians are not responsible for finding full-text.
   • Two screeners review full texts.
   • Resolve conflicts with a third reviewer as outlined in your protocol.

Covidence is a recommended tool for both screening stages.

In step 4, the librarian can assist with:

• Using Covidence and managing the screening process
• Applying eligibility criteria to the screening process (note: librarians typically do not screen articles as they are not subject matter experts)
• Testing citations with a randomized sample

To comply with PRISMA 2020 reporting in this step you will need to track the number of articles you exclude during title/abstract screening and the reasons you excluded articles during full-text screening. To document this, you will use the PRISMA flow diagram. There are templates and generators to assist in this process below.