PRISMA Flow Diagram
See the PRISMA Statement (and flow diagram) at http://www.prisma-statement.org/statement.htm
After identification of studies and screening for things like duplicates or multiple references to the same study, you need to evaluate for eligibility! What are your eligibility criteria: Certain types of studies (e.g. Randomized controlled trials)? Particular participants, interventions, comparisons, and outcomes (PICOS)? Certain years, languages or publication status? Methodological considerations? Any issues of bias?
Guides and Standards for Conducting Systematic Reviews
Guides and standards for systematic reviews in general from Weill Cornell's Systematic Reviews guide:
- AHRQ Methods Guide for Medical Test Reviews - Practical guide for investigators interested in conducting systematic reviews on medical test
- AHRQ Methods Guide for Effectiveness and Comparative Effectiveness Reviews- Covers each step involved in researching and writing a Comparative Effectiveness review (CER). CERs are systematic reviews of existing research on the effectiveness, comparative effectiveness, and harms of different health care interventions.
- Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions - Provides guidance to authors for the preparation of Cochrane Intervention reviews.
- IOM Standards for Systematic Reviews - Addresses the entire systematic review process, from locating, screening, and selecting studies for the review, to synthesizing the findings (including meta-analysis) and assessing the overall quality of the body of evidence, to producing the final review report.
- PRISMA - Provides an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. It includes a 27-item checklist and a four-phase flow diagram.