Public Health

Scoping reviews are similar to systematic reviews in that they collect and analyze a large body of literature. There is even a PRISMA flow chart designed especially for scoping reviews. However, there are some important differences between systematic and scoping reviews:

• The purpose of a scoping review is to identify gaps in the research by exploring the nature and extent of what has already been done, rather than assess the quality or efficacy of that previous research
  • findings usually include themes identified by the authors
• Scoping reviews aren't expected to gather all of the available research, simply to gather enough evidence to get an idea of the scope of the larger body of research
• Scoping reviews are a form of secondary research literature, because they gather together and analyze the results of primary (and also sometimes secondary) research

indications for systematic reviews:

• uncover the international evidence
• confirm current, variations on, and new practice
• identify and inform areas for future research
• identify and investigate conflicting results
• produce statements to guide decision-making

indications for scoping reviews

• identify the types of available evidence in a given field
• clarify key concepts and definitions in the literature
• examine how research is conducted within a certain topic or field
• identify key characteristics or factors related to a concept
• as a precursor to a systematic review
• identify and analyze knowledge gaps

• the above "indications" are from:
  Munn, Z., Peters, M. D. J., Stern, C., Tufanaru, C., McArthur, A., & Aromataris, E. (2018). Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 18(1), 143. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x

   

and 12 more types of reviews:

• Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

How can librarians support the review?

• Translating a research question into an effective search strategy
• Locating existing systematic reviews and protocols to give you background information for your work
• Maximizing the balance between search precision and retrieval 
• Selecting databases for systematic searching
• Advising on grey literature search strategies
• Sharing strategies and tools for saving, managing and exporting search results and citations

Levels of librarian support and how to credit

Much of the work a librarian does to assist researchers falls under their everyday job responsibilities. However, systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses, often require greater librarian involvement and include the librarian as a partner in the research project. When these levels of assistance lead to a published paper, it is appropriate to credit the librarian, either as a coauthor or acknowledged contributor.

Basic guidelines on what to expect as usual support from your librarian collaborator:

• Uncredited - regular librarian work
  • Overview of review process and best practices
  • Identifying keywords and databases
    • but not the construction of structured search phrases
  • Recommending tools
  • Single consultation
• Acknowledgement or Contributor note - regular librarian work but significant support
  • Troubleshooting search strategy created mostly by researchers
  • Data management consultation
  • More than one consultation
• Authorship (one or more of the following)
  • study uses a search strategy or filter developed by librarian
  • registering a protocol
  • citation retrieval and management
  • hand searching for articles
  • Assisting with paper's methods section
  • Section edits

The Institute of Medicine, the  Cochrane Collaboration, the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (University of York), and other organizations each have their own recommendations on conducting a systematic or scoping review.  

Best practices from Cochrane:

• Include a medical librarian on your team
  • Cochrane recommends the team include "an experienced medical/healthcare librarian or information specialist to provide support for the search process." (Cochrane 2023 4-1)
• Use Boolean to structure your searches
  • "Search strategies should avoid using too many different search concepts but a wide variety of search terms should be combined with OR within each included concept." (Cochrane 2023 4-2-2)
• Use subject headings in your searches
  • "Both free-text and subject headings (e.g. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Emtree) should be used." (Cochrane 2023 4-2-2)
• Minimize selection bias
  • Manage the efficiency and thoroughness of the search in a way that minimizes language and publication bias (Cochrane 2023 4-2-2)
• Do not have 2 people independently search for articles
  • "Unlike for tasks such as study selection or data extraction, it is not considered necessary (or even desirable) for two people to conduct independent searches in parallel. It is strongly recommended, however, that all search strategies should be peer reviewed, before being run, by a suitably qualified and experienced medical/healthcare librarian or information specialist" (Cochrane 2023 section 4-2-2)
• Search all relevant databases
  • "It is highly desirable that searches be conducted of appropriate national, regional and subject specific bibliographic databases" (Cohrane 2023 4-3-1-4)
• Select a minimum of 2 people to independently code your articles
  • "As a minimum, information that involves subjective interpretation and information that is critical to the interpretation of results (e.g. outcome data) should be extracted independently by at least two people" (Cochrane 2023 5-5-2)

Devon (your librarian) reviews a scoping review:

Maggio, LA, Larsen, K, Thomas, A, Costello, JA, Artino, AR. Scoping reviews in medical education: A scoping review. Med Educ. 2021; 55: 689– 700. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.14431

• Positives:
  • Methods section
    • Correctly cited a source which guides the construction of the methodology of scoping reviews
      • Arksey and OMalley, and Levac et al update
    • appropriately identified research questions
    • correctly attribute the construction of the search to the librarian
      • librarian is also appropriately included as an author in the article
    • their supplement with the search phrases does provide every search phrase used in its entirety together with limits used on the searches
      • However, No detail is given with regard to the search phrases in the body of the published article, readers need to consult a supplemental document
    • 2 authors reviewed each article, a third facilitated resolution of disagreements
    • Also had a shared learning process at the beginning of coding to establish coding consistency
    • Reference PRISMA in the creating of their extraction instrument, which they refer to as a “charting tool”
    • Also piloted “charting tool”, and modified tool based on experiences in the pilot
    • Again, a third author served to resolve disagreements
  • Results section
    • They provide reference numbers (citations) to each article included in each data point
    • Include a figure of all of the codes in their extraction instrument and the number of articles as a percentage as well as citations coded for each item
• Negatives:
  • Methods
    • Limited search to 14 medical education journals
      • They do argue that they did this because the indexing of medical education is not comprehensive, so they “erred on the side of search strategy accuracy” rather than scope or depth
    • No detail is given with regard to the search phrases in the body of the published article, readers need to consult a supplemental
      • However, as a positive, their supplement with the search phrases does provide every search phrase used in its entirety together with limits used on the searches