Scoping Reviews: Step 5: Screen Citations

Click an item below to see how it applies to Step 5: Screen Studies.

There are many tools that can be useful for organizing the screening process, including Covidence, Rayyan, Abstrackr, and HAWC.   

UNC currently has an institutional subscription to Covidence making it available for free to UNC-affiliated users. HSL can provide classes and support for Covidence. To learn more visit the Covidence LibGuide.

HSL does not currently offer in-house support for other screening tools.  

All of these tools support reference importing of multiple file types (.ris & txt), in-/excluding references, exporting results, and tagging with keywords. Additionally, they are all web-based and therefore can be used on multiple operating systems, such as MacOS, Windows, and Linux. They cannot assist with protocol development or automated searching. The chart below provides more details to help you compare and choose a screening tool.

For information on how to sign up for a Covidence account, create a review, or customize your review settings, visit our Covidence guide.

Once you have created a review for your project in Covidence:

1. Navigate to your Review Summary page and click Import Studies.
    
2. In the dropdown menu below Import in to, select the folder where you would like the citations to go (Screen).
    
3. Browse to and attach your citation file in XML, CRS, or RIS text format.
    
4. Then click Import. It may take a couple of minutes, but you should see your citations appear in your scoping review on Covidence within the next few minutes.

Once you have completed literature searching and compiled all citations, it is time to screen the results. The purpose of screening is to eliminate studies that do not meet your inclusion criteria. Two independent reviewers should screen all studies, starting with a title and abstract screening, followed by a full-text screening. A third reviewer or the review team should resolve any conflicts.

Remember, all voting should be blinded, meaning team members should be unable to see how others cast their votes.

During the title/abstract screening, for each reference, each reviewer should read the title and abstract and make a decision:

• No: This reference does not meet inclusion criteria and should not be included in the scoping review.
• Maybe: There is not enough information in the title/abstract to make a decision (move to full-text screening stage).
• Yes: This reference appears to meet inclusion criteria and should move to the full-text screening stage.

After you complete title/abstract screening, you will need to review any conflicts between reviewers and resolve if references should move forward to full text screening or be marked as irrelevant.

During the full-text screening, for each reference, read the full-text and make a decision:

• Include: This reference meets inclusion criteria and should be included in the scoping review.
• Exclude: This reference does not meet inclusion criteria and should not be included in the scoping review.

After full-text screening, you will need to review any conflicting decisions, as well as conflicting reasons for exclusion.

UNC currently has an institutional subscription to Covidence making it available for free to UNC-affiliated users. HSL can provide classes and support for Covidence. To learn more visit the Covidence LibGuide.

Note: The example images we use are from Covidence.  Other scoping review screening tools may have different appearances and features.

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 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 less error or conflicts.

"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. [...] 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." (From prisma-statement.org )

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 page on this guide.

PRISMA and Covidence:

Covidence will track numbers 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 databases search and the number of duplicates removed from your set of articles. 

Covidence Webinars
Covidence demonstrates their features for new users in monthly webinars.  You can also listen to a recording of a recent Covidence webinar.

Training Sessions
The HSL holds regular Covidence training sessions throughout the semester. To sign up for a Covidence training session, please visit our Classes Page. 

Individual or Group Consultations
If you are unable to attend one of the group training sessions or have additional questions after a training session, you can request a Covidence consultation on the HSL website at any time.