Systematic Reviews in the Health Sciences

A scoping review is a type of research synthesis that aims to "map the literature on a particular topic or research area and provide an opportunity to identify key concepts; gaps in the research; and types and sources of evidence to inform practice, policymaking, and research" *

* Daudt HM, van Mossel C, Scott SJ. Enhancing the scoping study methodology: a large, inter-professional team's experience with Arksey and O'Malley's framework. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2013 Mar 23;13:48. doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-13-48. PMID: 23522333; PMCID: PMC3614526. (p. 8)

Understanding a Scoping Review: 

A Scoping Review 

• Is not easier than a systematic review.
• Is not faster than a systematic review and may actually take longer.
• Has usually more citations to screen
• Uses different screening criteria from a systematic review
• Often leads to a broader, less defined search.
• Requires multiple structured searches instead of one.
• Has increased emphasis for hand searching the literature.
• May require larger teams because of larger volume of literature.
• May have Inconsistency in the conduct of scoping reviews.

Indicators for Conducting a Scoping Review:

• To identify the types of available evidence in a given field
• To clarify key concepts/ definitions in the literature
• To examine how research is conducted on a certain topic or field
• To identify key characteristics or factors related to a concept
• As a precursor to a systematic review
• To identify and analyse knowledge gaps

Reference:

Munn, Z., Peters, M.D.J., Stern, C. et al. Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Med Res Methodol 18, 143 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x