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Scoping & Systematic Reviews

In this guide you will find information about how to conduct a scoping and systematic review plus information on how librarians can support your in the process.

About Step 5: Screen Citations

Average time (hours) to complete
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In Step 5, you will screen all the articles to decide if they are relevant to your research question. You will:

  1. Use a systematic/scoping review tool like Covidence to organize articles.
  2. Read the title and abstract of every article and vote to include or exclude them.
  3. Resolve disputes with your teammates.
  4. Find the full text of all included articles.
  5. Read the full text of included articles to decide if they are relevant.
  6. Search for final articles on Retraction Watch to be sure that they have not be retracted.

Click tabs to see how it applies to Step 5: Screen Citations

For your PRISMA flow diagram, you must track the number of articles you exclude at the title/abstract level and the number of articles and reasons for exclusion at the full-text level.

For information on how to document title/abstract and full text screening on your PRISMA flow diagram, go to Step by Step Prisma 2020 - see steps 4-9 under Prisma 2020.

Please see Systematic & Scoping Review Service for more
detailed information and to submit a request form. 

A librarian can advise you on citation management for your review, including:

  • How to screen citations and manage the screening process using different tools like folders in Ebsco, Citation Managers, or Screening tools like Covidence.
  • How to apply your review inclusion and exclusion criteria to the screening process
  • How to create a randomized sample of citations for a pilot test

Screening Process

Your review protocol developed at the beginning of your review will have outlined inclusion and exclusion criteria (see step 1). These will form the basis of the screening process. All articles included in your review must undergo two rounds of screening:

  1. Begin by screening titles and abstracts to remove obviously irrelevant material. At this stage you may not need to provide justification for your exclusions. Typically screened by two individuals though single screening is permitted, during this phase it is common for 90% of articles retrieved by the search to be excluded
  2. You will then need to examine the full text of an article for more detailed screening against your eligibility criteria. At this stage you must provide reasons why you exclude documents. The full manuscripts are reviewed by two screeners and the result of their decisions determines whether the article is included in the review

In many ways, the search strategy created by the librarian operationalizes the inclusion criteria. The screening process does the same for the exclusion criteria. In the title/abstract phase, it is better to be overly permissive rather than overly conservative. Often, exclusion criteria are made more stringent during the full-text screening phase. 

Consider:

  • appropriate study population (age, geography, illness)
  • appropriate intervention/method/measurements
  • comparable environment/ population 
  • language - can the article be sourced/translated in the language required?

When reviewing the full text of the article, consider:

  • appropriate method/measurement
  • appropriate sample size
  • duplication of data  (avoid counting the same data twice)
  • access to data not included in the article if required

Screening & Data Extraction Software

The following resources can be used during the screening and data extraction phases of your systematic & scoping review projects. Please note that most of these have a software subscription fee. Many of the functions provided by these software products can be replicated using Endnote, Excel, and statistical analysis software. 

Using the Library Database Tools for Screening

Some people prefer to screen, sort, and save results within the database interfaces. If using EBSCO databases for your systematic searches, these strategies might be helpful. You'll need to create a myEBSCO account and be signed in. This can also be done on the Proquest platform if you are using any Proquest databases. 

Display Results by Date: Choose to sort by "Date Newest" rather than "Relevance." Now the system will sort results the same way each time. If reviewing results over multiple sessions, simply note the date you stopped reviewing and start there next time.

Display Abstracts: Under "Page Options," select "Detailed." This will make the abstract appear on the results page.

Display More Results: Under "Page Options" select "Results per Page: 50." This will make it easier to page to older results

Create Folders: In your Folder, on the bottom-left corner, set up YES, NO and UNDECIDED subfolders. Once subfolders are created, you can add results to these folders by simply clicking on the blue folder image next to each result and select where you'd like the result to be sorted. Articles that match your inclusion criteria go to into YES. Excluded results can be sorted into NO. Results you're initially unsure of go into UNDECIDED, and you can come back to these later. Once screening is complete, you'll have a clear record of each article that you will include and exclude from the study and your YES folder results can be exported for coding.

If you are using sources outside of the database platform you should keep track of those on a google sheet or document. 

Helpful tip - Preliminary testing and screening

Test screening or pilot screening usually involves choosing a random sample of citations from your results, then having all reviewers screen that sample to ensure consistency across responses.  It can be performed in Covidence, Google Sheets, or Excel. While adding this step may add some time initially, it will most likely expedite both screening phases as screeners will be more comfortable applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria properly and most likely result in fewer errors or conflicts.

Accessing Fulltext Articles

We do not provide full-text retrieval as part of our systematic or scoping review service. Here are the steps you can follow to access full-text articles:

  1. Use Endnote or Zotero (if applicable) to automatically retrieve most online articles held by APU Library. 
  2. Use Article Finder to locate full text of articles.  
  3. If full text is not available in step #2, click on Interlibrary Loan to request the articles. This is a free service for all APU-affiliated users.

Reporting Standards for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA)

IF part of the author team, the librarian will provide a draft of the Prisma Flow Diagram after screening has taken place.


PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. It is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. For the Systematic Review, the PRISMA Statement consists of a 27-item checklist and a four-phase flow diagram. The PRISMA extension for scoping reviews was published in 2018. The checklist contains 20 essential reporting items and 2 optional items to include when completing a scoping review.

In your review, you will need to track the number of results from each database you search, the number of duplicates you remove, the decisions you make on each article, and in the full text level, the reasons why you exclude articles. More information and a step-by-step guide can be found on the Using PRISMA for Reporting in Step 8 page on this guide.

PRISMA and Covidence

Covidence will track the number of citations screened at each stage and how many are ultimately included in the review. These numbers can be copied and pasted into a PRISMA diagram template. You will still need to record the number of results from each database search and the number of duplicates removed from your set of articles. 

If you need help with Covidence, check out the following:

Covidence Demo & Tutorials

Covidence Screening Application

Covidence is a screening and data extraction tool for conducting systematic reviews. It allows screening to be more efficient and easily tracked. There is a trial period but to get a full subscription you will have to pay for it. 

The main steps for Covidence:
1. Upload search results as an RIS file
2. Covidence will automatically deduplicate records
3. Screen abstracts for relevancy by two or more reviewers
4. Screen full text using inclusion and exclusion criteria
5. Resolve disagreements
6. Complete data extraction after customizing templates
7. Conduct risk of bias assessment
8. Export data into RevMan or Excel