Hi Awoke,

Scoping and systematic reviews are a bit related but differs in these key areas:

1. Scoping reviews are descriptive in nature

2. They tackle a broader question as compared to systematic reviews, which may relate to say the effectiveness of an intervention

3. They should help indentify whether there is enough data to conduct a systematic review - see it as the first step to gathering information on whether or not to conduct a systematic review

4. While they may incorporate the exhaustive literature searches reminiscent of systematic reviews, a scoping review does not use quantitative appraisals or quantitative synthesis of data

5. To conduct a scoping review, you'll need to use modified PRISMA guidelines

This might help: http://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Gerstein-Library-scoping-reviews_May-12.pdf

Hi Awoke,

Scoping and systematic reviews are a bit related but differs in these key areas:

1. Scoping reviews are descriptive in nature

2. They tackle a broader question as compared to systematic reviews, which may relate to say the effectiveness of an intervention

3. They should help indentify whether there is enough data to conduct a systematic review - see it as the first step to gathering information on whether or not to conduct a systematic review

4. While they may incorporate the exhaustive literature searches reminiscent of systematic reviews, a scoping review does not use quantitative appraisals or quantitative synthesis of data

5. To conduct a scoping review, you'll need to use modified PRISMA guidelines

This might help: http://www.equator-network.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Gerstein-Library-scoping-reviews_May-12.pdf

Many thanks Thomas, your reflection is helpful and appreciated.

Hello Derbie I would like to comment that Systematic reviews are a type of literature review that uses systematic methods to collect secondary data critically appraise research studies, and synthesize studies. Systematic reviews formulate research questions that are broad or narrow in scope and identify and synthesize studies that directly relate to the systematic review question. They are designed to provide a complete exhaustive summary of current evidence relevant to a research question. Systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials are key to the practice of evidence-based medicine and a review of existing studies is often quicker and cheaper than embarking on a new study. An understanding of systematic reviews, and how to implement them in practice, is highly recommended for professionals involved in the delivery of health care. Besides health interventions, systematic reviews may examine clinical tests, public health interventions, environmental interventions social interventions, adverse effects, and economic evaluations. Systematic reviews are not limited to medicine and are quite common in all other sciences where data are collected, published in the literature, and an assessment of methodological quality for a precisely defined subject would be helpful.

The main stages of a systematic review are:

1.Defining a question and agreeing an objective method.

2.A search for relevant data from research that matches certain criteria. For example, only selecting research that is good quality and answers the defined question. Contacting a trained information professional or librarian can improve the quality of the systematic review.

3.'Extraction' of relevant data. This can include how the research was done (often called the method or 'intervention'), who participated in the research (including how many people), how it was paid for (for example funding sources) and what happened (the outcomes).

4.Assess the quality of the data by judging it against criteria identified at the first stage.

5. Analyse and combine the data (using complex statistical methods) which give an overall result from all of the data. This combination of data can be visualised using a blobbogram (also called a forest plot). The diamond in the blobbogram represents the combined results of all the data included. Because this combined result uses data from more sources than just one data set, it's considered more reliable and better evidence, as the more data there is, the more confident we can be of conclusions.

Once these stages are complete, the review may be published disseminated and translated into practice after being adopted as evidence.

A scoping review (also scoping study) refers to a rapid gathering of literature in a given policy or clinical area where the aims are to accumulate as much evidence as possible and map the results. Scoping studies (or reviews) are a method used to comprehensively map evidence across a range of study designs in an area, with the aim of informing future research practice, programs and policy. However, no universal agreement exists on terminology, definition or methodological steps. Scoping searches are fairly brief searches of existing literature designed to help you gain an overview of the range and depth of research that exists for a particular research idea. It can cover published work and discover on-going studies.

Scoping reviews are exploratory projects that systematically map the literature on a topic, identifying key concepts, theories and sources of evidence. It is important to understand the differences between review types (see Grant et al, 2009 and Reynen et al, 2017). Scoping reviews aim to address broader, more complex, and exploratory research questions as opposed to systematic reviews which are designed to answer precisely defined, narrow questions. Searching in the scoping review should be systematic. CIHR describes scoping reviews thus they entail the systematic selection, collection and summarization of existing knowledge in a broad thematic area." Scoping reviews are often conducted before full syntheses, and undertaken when feasibility of the research is considered to be a challenge, either because the relevant literature is thought to be vast and diverse (varying by methods, theoretical orientations and disciplines) and/or it is thought that little literature exists. In the scoping review, the same systematic, rigorous methodologies used by the systematic review are used to find studies and extract data. Analyses and syntheses are part of every scoping review but the depth and type of analysis are different. Scoping reviews are commonly used to better understand phenomena and to evaluate where research on a topic has or has not been completed. Scoping reviews are often a first step in conducting a systematic review because they allow researchers to see where there are data points in the larger literature landscape. This is valuable for evaluating whether or not a systematic review is a feasible or viable option in some cases. Systematic reviews are commonly completed to show comparative effectiveness of some interventions and meta-analysis is usually done in these types of studies. Scoping reviews entail systematic selection, collection and summaries of existing knowledge to identify where there is sufficient evidence to conduct a full synthesis or where insufficient evidence exists and further primary research is necessary.

A scoping review (also scoping study) refers to a rapid gathering of literature in a given policy or clinical area where the aims are to accumulate as much evidence as possible and map the results. Scoping reviews are a type of literature review that aims to provide an overview of the type, extent and quantity of research available on a given topic. By ‘mapping’ existing research, a scoping review can identify potential research gaps and future research needs, and do so by using systematic and transparent methods. The term ‘scoping review’ does not seem to have a commonly-accepted definition but several researchers such as Arksey & O’Malley, 2005, Anderson et al, 2008 and Davis, 2009 have attempted definitions. In 2010, Rumrill et al said that " scoping reviews are efficient ways of identifying themes and trends in high-volume areas of scientific inquiry." Generally, a scoping review is an iterative process whereby existing literature is identified, examined and conceptually mapped, and where gaps are identified. Think of a scoping review as a first step in doing a systematic review or large study. Given the "scope" of a scoping review, their aim is to establish what research has been published on specific topics and disciplinary areas (including reviews of policies, practices and research). The literature search in a scoping review should be as extensive as possible, and include a range of relevant databases, hand searches and attempts to identify unpublished literature. Often, the underlying aim of a scoping review is to explore the literature as opposed to answering specific questions. The scoping review should also include locating organizations and individuals that are relevant to the domain and what those groups have published. In the social sciences, scoping studies are performed at an initial stage of doing research (ie. program, project, process, or grant). Scoping reviews are used in some research areas to justify further investigation, time and resources.

According to Grant and Booth (2009), there are some characteristic features of scoping reviews that can be used to distinguish them from other types of reviews:

1. Preliminary assessment of size and scope of available research literature

2. Aims to identify nature and extent of research evidence (usually including ongoing research)

3. Completeness of searching determined by time/scope constraints May include research in progress

4. No formal quality assessment

5. Typically tabular with some narrative commentary

6. Characterizes quantity and quality of literature, perhaps by study design and other key features

7. Attempts to specify a viable review

I am Sure it would help you Regards

In scoping review Research question is Broadly defined while in systematic Highly focused.

Regards

Dr Kamath Madhusudhana

Thank you all. The reflections are interesting and helpful.

Kindly

this link includes a useful comparison between scoping reviews and systematic reviews, hope this helps https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/c.php?g=588615&p=4310109

Like Ahsan Siddiqui, I found Grant and Booth's 2009 article (accessible through ResearchGate atArticle A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and as...

Article Understanding scoping reviews: Definition, purpose, and proc...

Article A scoping review of scoping reviews: Advancing the approach ...

I hope this helps.

Both are the review approach to synthesize evidence.

Systematic review follow a structured and pre-defined process that requires rigorous methods, with a view to minimize bias thus providing both reliable and meaningful results to end users.

The scoping review is relatively a new approach where purpose is to identify knowledge gaps, scope a body of literature, clarify concepts or to investigate research conduct. It may also be helpful precursors to Scoping review and can be used to confirm the relevance of inclusion criteria and potential questions.

"Scoping reviews have great utility for synthesizing research evidence and are often used to [categorize or group] existing literature in a given field in terms of its nature, features, and volume."  Note: Often a scoping review is confused with a mapping review.  They are two different types of descriptive reviews and are not systematic reviews, but the methodology is closely related.  

According to Grant and Booth (2009), Scoping reviews are "preliminary assessment of potential size and scope of available research literature.  Aims to identify nature and extent of research evidence (usually including ongoing research)."

Scoping Reviews are best designed for:

"When a body of literature has not yet been comprehensively reviewed, or exhibits a large, complex, or heterogeneous nature not amenable to a more precise systematic review."

• Map existing literature in terms of nature, features, volume
• Clarify working definitions and conceptual boundaries of a topic or field
• Identify gaps in existing literature/research

(Peters M, Godfrey C, Khalil H, et al)