Make 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.
Joanna Briggs Institute. The Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers’ Manual 2020: Methodology for JBI Scoping Reviews. 2020. (pdf)
Lockwood C, Tricco AC. Preparing scoping reviews for publication using methodological guides and reporting standards. Nurs Health Sci. 2020;22(1):1-4. doi: 10.1111/nhs.12673
McGowan J, Straus S, Moher D, et al. Reporting scoping reviews-PRISMA ScR extension. J Clin Epidemiol. 2020;123:177-179. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.03.016
PRISMA 2020 Flow Diagram generator
PRISMA checklist - PRISMA 2020
Cochrane Handbook, part 2, chapter 15: Interpreting results and drawing conclusions
Cochrane Handbook, part 2, chapter 3: Reporting of new Cochrane reviews
Cochrane Handbook, part 2, chapter 21: Qualitative evidence
EQUATOR network (Enhancing the quality and transparency of health research reporting)
JBI Evidence Synthesis - Information for authors
Standards for reporting of diagnostic accuracy (STARD) statement
Here are the essential components for the final review, as outlined in the JBI Reviewer's Manual. Include the following sections:
| Title | The title should be concise, directly represent the review's main aspects. It should include the phrase "...: a scoping review." The title should not exceed 25 words. |
| Review authors | Affiliations for each author need to be stated, including the JBI affiliation of each reviewer (if relevant). A valid email address must be provided as contact details for the corresponding author. |
| Abstract | Structure the abstract and include: objectives, brief introduction, inclusion criteria, methods, results, conclusions. Refer to the author guidelines of the journal you plan to submit for journal related guidance. |
| Introduction | The introduction should comprehensively cover all the main elements of the topic, its importance, and the rationale for conducting the scoping review. |
| Review questions |
The primary question(s) addressed by the scoping review should be stated |
| Inclusion criteria | Specify the inclusion criteria transparently, guided by the review's questions. Ensure clarity and transparency in this section. Inclusion criteria are question-dependent and should cover Population, Concept, and Context (PCC). |
| Methods | Include details regarding the protocol, eligibility criteria, databases searched and describe how data were extracted and analysed. The search strategy must be comprehensively reported and the detailed search strategy for all of the major bibliographic citation databases and other sources that have been searched should be appended to the review. The individual search strategies for every database searched should be presented in sequence and in a consistent format in an Appendix. |
| Results | Incorporate PRISMA diagram to display the number of articles screened at each stage. Provide details on study characteristics, assess risk of bias, and summarise findings across studies. |
| Discussion | This section should discuss the results of the review as well as any limitations of the sources included in the scoping review |
| Conclusion and recommendations | Summarise key findings, addressing evidence strength and review limitations. Interpret the results and discuss their implications for future research. |
| Conflicts/ funding/ acknowledgments | Describe any conflicts of interest, sources of funding and acknowledgments in this section. |
| References | Refer to the author guidelines of the journal you plan to submit for journal related guidance. |
| Appendices | Include entire search strategy used for at least one (or all) database/s and the data extraction tool used. |