In Step 8, you will write an article or a paper about your systematic review. It will likely have five sections: introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. You will:
The PRISMA Checklist will help you report the details of your systematic review. Your paper will also include a PRISMA chart that is an image of your research process.
Click an item below to see how it applies to Step 8: Write the Review.
To write your review, you will need the data from your PRISMA flow diagram. Review the PRISMA checklist to see which items you should report in your methods section.
When you screen in Covidence, it will record the numbers you need for your PRISMA flow diagram from duplicate removal through inclusion of studies. You may need to add additional information, such as the number of references from each database, citations you find through grey literature or other searching methods, or the number of studies found in your previous work if you are updating a systematic review.
A librarian can advise you on the process of organizing and writing up your systematic review, including:
Be sure to reference reporting standards when writing your review. This helps ensure that you communicate essential components of your methods, results, and conclusions. There are a number of tools that can be used to ensure compliance with reporting guidelines. A few review-writing resources are listed below.
The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) is a 27-item checklist used to improve transparency in systematic reviews. These items cover all aspects of the manuscript, including title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and funding. The PRISMA checklist can be downloaded in PDF or Word files.
The PRISMA Flow Diagram visually depicts the flow of studies through each phase of the review process. The PRISMA Flow Diagram can be downloaded in Word files.
If you have also searched additional sources, such as professional organization websites, cited or citing references, etc., document your grey literature search using the flow diagram template version 1 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for new systematic reviews which included searches of databases, registers and other sources or the version 2 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for updated systematic reviews which included searches of databases, registers and other sources.
Complete the boxes documenting your database searches, Identification of studies via databases and registers, according to the PRISMA flow diagram instructions. Complete the boxes documenting your grey literature and/or hand searches on the right side of the template, Identification of studies via other methods, using the steps below.
There are different PRISMA flow diagram templates for new and updated reviews, as well as different templates for reviews with and without grey literature searches. Be sure you download the correct template to match your review methods, then follow the steps below for each portion of the diagram you have available.
Step 1: Preparation Download the flow diagram template version 1 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for new systematic reviews which included searches of databases and registers only or the version 2 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for updated systematic reviews which included searches of databases and registers only.
Step | Screenshots of PRISMA diagram |
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Step 2: Doing the Database Search Run the search for each NOTE:Some citation managers automatically remove duplicates |
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Step 3: Remove All Duplicates To avoid reviewing duplicate articles, NOTE: If you are using Covidence to screen your articles, you can |
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Step 4: Records Screened- Title/Abstract Screening The next step is to add the number of articles that you will screen. This should be the number of records identified minus the number from the duplicates removed box. |
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Step 5: Records Excluded- Title/Abstract Screening You will need to screen the titles and abstracts for articles which are relevant to your research question. Any articles that appear to help you provide an answer to your research question should be included. Record the number of articles excluded through title/abstract screening in the box to the right titled "Records excluded." You can optionally add exclusion reasons at this level, but they are not required until full text screening. |
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Step 6: Reports Sought for Retrieval This is the number of articles you obtain in preparation for full text screening. Subtract the number of excluded records (Step 5) from the total number screened (Step 4) and this will be your number sought for retrieval. |
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Step 7: Reports Not Retrieved List the number of articles for which you are unable to find the full text. Remember to use Find@UNC and Interlibrary Loan to request articles to see if we can order them from other libraries before automatically excluding them. |
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Step 8: Reports Assessed for Eligibility- Full Text Screening This should be the number of reports sought for retrieval (Step 6) minus the number of reports not retrieved (Step 7). Review the full text for these articles to assess their eligibility for inclusion in your systematic review. |
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Step 9: Reports Excluded After reviewing all articles in the full-text screening stage for eligibility, enter the total number of articles you exclude in the box titled "Reports excluded," and then list your reasons for excluding the articles as well as the number of records excluded for each reason. Examples include wrong setting, wrong patient population, wrong intervention, wrong dosage, etc. You should only count an excluded article once in your list even if if meets multiple exclusion criteria. |
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Step 10: Included Studies The final step is to subtract the number |
Step 1: Preparation Download the flow diagram template version 1 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for new systematic reviews which included searches of databases, registers and other sources or the version 2 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for updated systematic reviews which included searches of databases, registers and other sources.
Step | Screenshots of PRISMA diagram |
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Step 2: Records Identified If you have identified articles through other sources than databases (such as manual searches through reference lists of articles you have found or search engines like Google Scholar), enter the total number of records from each source type in the box on the top right of the flow diagram. |
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Step 3: Reports Sought for Retrieval This should be the total number of reports you obtain from each grey literature source. |
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Step 4: Reports Not Retrieved List the number of documents for which you are unable to find the full text. Remember to use Find@UNC and Interlibrary Loan to request items to see if we can order them from other libraries before automatically excluding them. |
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Step 5: Reports Assessed for Eligibility This should be the number of grey literature reports sought for retrieval (Step 2) minus the number of reports not retrieved (Step 3). Review the full text for these items to assess their eligibility for inclusion in your systematic review. |
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Step 6: Reports excluded After reviewing all items in the full-text screening stage for eligibility, enter the total number of articles you exclude in the box titled "Reports Excluded," and then list your reasons for excluding the item as well as the number of items excluded for each reason. Examples include wrong setting, wrong patient population, wrong intervention, wrong dosage, etc. You should only count an excluded item once in your list even if if meets multiple exclusion criteria. |
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Step 7: Included Studies The final step is to subtract the number of excluded articles or records during the eligibility review of full-texts from the total number of articles reviewed for eligibility. Enter this number in the box labeled "Studies included in review," combining numbers with your database search results in this box if needed. You have now completed your PRISMA flow diagram, which you can now include in the results section of your article or assignment. |
Step 1: Preparation Download the flow diagram template version 2 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for updated systematic reviews which included searches of databases and registers only or the version 2 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram for updated systematic reviews which included searches of databases, registers and other sources.
Step | Screenshots of PRISMA diagram |
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Step 2: Studies Included in Previous Version of Review In the Previous
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Step 3: Total Studies Included in Review At the bottom of the column, There will also be a box for the total number of studies included in your |
For more information about updating your systematic review, see the box Updating Your Review? on the Step 3: Conduct Literature Searches page of the guide.
Scientific articles often follow the IMRaD format: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. You will also need a title and an abstract to summarize your research.
You can read more about scientific writing through the library guides below.
Systematic reviews follow the same structure as original research articles, but you will need to report on your search instead of on details like the participants or sampling. Sections of your manuscript are shown as bold headings in the PRISMA checklist.
Title | Describe your manuscript and state whether it is a systematic review, meta-analysis, or both. |
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Abstract | Structure the abstract and include (as applicable): background, objectives, data sources, study eligibility criteria, participants, interventions, quality assessment and synthesis methods, results, limitations, conclusions, implications of key findings, and systematic review registration number. |
Introduction | Describe the rationale for the review and provide a statement of questions being addressed. |
Methods | Include details regarding the protocol, eligibility criteria, databases searched, full search strategy of at least one database (often reported in appendix), and the study selection process. Describe how data were extracted and analyzed. If a librarian is part of your research team, that person may be best suited to write this section. |
Results | Report the numbers of articles screened at each stage using a PRISMA diagram. Include information about included study characteristics, risk of bias (quality assessment) within studies, and results across studies. |
Discussion | Summarize main findings, including the strength of evidence and limitations of the review. Provide a general interpretation of the results and implications for future research. |
Funding | Describe any sources of funding for the systematic review. |
Appendix | Include entire search strategy for at least one database in the appendix (include search strategies for all databases searched for more transparency). |
Refer to the PRISMA checklist for more information.
Consider including a Plain Language Summary (PLS) when you publish your systematic review. Like an abstract, a PLS gives an overview of your study, but is specifically written and formatted to be easy for non-experts to understand.
Tips for writing a PLS:
Learn more about Plain Language Summaries: