Part of the Cochrane Interactive Learning course on Conducting an Intervention Review, this module explains how to select studies to include in a review and methods for collecting data. This module teaches you how to work out systematically and fairly which studies meet your criteria, and approaches for collecting different data types and formats from studies. It provides you with an example data collection form that you can use in your intervention review.
Exercise 7 - Screening process
When reviewing the final search results from your chosen databases (and other sources if relevant), multiple reviewers (you and your supervisors or co-reviewers) will make decisions on which articles to include and exclude based on the criteria specified in your protocol. The first stage of this is usually based on titles and abstracts, then a full text analysis follows before data extraction.
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Various types of software can be used to store citations and do the screening:
A PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses) diagram is used to show the steps involved in the review process, as well as recording the number of articles excluded at each stage.
Here is an example of a PRISMA diagram:
Accessibility document - PRISMA diagram
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