Are you planning to conduct a systematic literature review and want to follow the PRISMA protocol for this?
It’s easier than you think!
In this article, I’ll explain what PRISMA is and show you exactly how you can apply it in your own literature review.
What is a PRISMA Literature Review?
PRISMA stands for “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.” It’s a guideline developed to improve the process and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
These literature-based papers are particularly valuable because they summarize the findings of many individual studies, providing a more comprehensive picture of a topic.
The PRISMA guidelines offer a standardized framework that ensures all important aspects of a systematic review are reported transparently and completely. This includes describing the search strategy, the criteria for selecting studies, the method for data extraction, and the assessment of study quality.
One important point is that PRISMA does not provide specific instructions on how to conduct the systematic review itself.
It does not include detailed steps for what databases to select or, how to analyze the data. These tasks fall under the methodology of the systematic review and are a bit dependent on your field. Therefore, you need to come up with your own analysis method and combine it with PRISMA.
However, PRISMA helps guide you through the systematic search process step by step and documents it thoroughly.
The Goals of PRISMA
The main goals of PRISMA are:
- Transparency: Ensuring that your search strategy is clearly and thoroughly described so that other researchers can replicate and verify your study.
- Completeness: All relevant information must be reported to give readers a full picture of your literature search.
- Comparability: By standardizing the reporting, it becomes easier to compare and evaluate different systematic reviews.
You can find a complete overview here: https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020.
When following the PRISMA guidelines, always make sure to cite the original source that contains the most recent version of the guidelines. The current version is PRISMA 2020. Here’s the complete reference for the PRISMA 2020 guidelines:
Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., … & Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021, 372.
What is the PRISMA Flow Chart?
The PRISMA flow chart, also sometimes called the PRISMA diagram, is a chart that shows how studies are selected for a systematic review.
It consists of four main phases:
- Identification: You search databases and other sources for studies and record the total number of studies found.
- Screening: You review the titles and abstracts of the studies and filter out those that are not relevant.
- Eligibility: You read the full text of the remaining studies and exclude those that do not fit your criteria.
- Inclusion: The final group of studies that will be included in your literature review or meta-analysis remains.
The PRISMA diagram helps you document the selection process clearly and ensures that nothing important is overlooked.
In the methods section of your paper, you should mention that your systematic review followed the PRISMA guidelines.
By explicitly mentioning PRISMA in the methodology section, you ensure that readers (and your supervisor) recognize and (hopefully) appreciate the structured approach of your systematic review.
Implementing a PRISMA Literature Search
Here are a few simple steps to implement the PRISMA literature search in your own work:
- Research: Search multiple databases, such as PubMed or Scopus, for relevant studies. Make a note of how and where you searched.
- Study Selection: Review the studies and remove those that don’t fit your criteria. Use the PRISMA diagram to document this process. You’ll need to develop your own selection criteria.
- Data Extraction: Gather key information from the selected studies, such as sample size, methods, and results. What exactly you extract depends on what you’re investigating.
- Study Quality Assessment: Assess the quality of the studies to ensure they are reliable.
Example of a Literature Review Using a PRISMA Diagram
To show you how PRISMA works in practice, let’s take a look at a paper that followed the PRISMA guidelines. The systematic review by Helen Crompton and Diane Burke, “Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field,” examines the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education.
The PRISMA guidelines were used in this study to make the process of the systematic review transparent and complete. Here’s a simple explanation of how the PRISMA guidelines were applied:
- Identification: The researchers conducted a literature search across several databases, identifying 341 relevant studies. Additionally, they conducted a manual search, finding 34 more studies. A manual search means that the researchers independently searched specific journals, reference lists, search engines, and websites in addition to the automated database search to ensure that no relevant studies were overlooked. Four duplicate studies were removed.
- Screening: After removing duplicates, 371 articles remained. After reviewing the titles and abstracts, no articles were excluded, so all 371 proceeded to full-text screening.
- Eligibility: The remaining articles were read in full and assessed. Some studies were excluded for the following reasons:
- No original research (n = 68): These articles were not original studies, but rather reviews or commentaries.
- Not in the field of higher education (n = 55): Studies were not related to higher education.
- No artificial intelligence (n = 92): These studies did not deal with AI.
- No use of AI for educational purposes (n = 18): AI was not used for educational purposes in these studies.
- Inclusion: Finally, 138 articles were included in the systematic review. These articles were analyzed in detail and qualitatively coded to answer the study’s research questions.
Source: Crompton, H., & Burke, D. (2023). Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20(1), 22.
You just need to fill out the PRISMA flowchart with the results of your literature search and screening, and you can include it in the methods section of your paper as a figure. Super easy, right?
The PRISMA Checklist
Additionally, PRISMA offers useful resources like a checklist, available on the PRISMA website. This checklist helps ensure that systematic reviews and meta-analyses are reported in a complete and transparent manner. It consists of 27 items, organized into different sections, and serves as a guide to structure your review.
This checklist is particularly relevant if you are preparing a full systematic review for your thesis or paper.
Checklist Summary:
- Title and Abstract: Clearly state that it is a systematic review. Provide a concise overview of the study.
- Introduction: Outline the background and reasons for the review. Clearly define the review’s objectives and research questions.
- Methods: Specify the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the studies. Describe the information sources and search strategies. Explain the selection and data extraction processes. Outline methods for assessing risk of bias and measures of effect. Detail how data from different studies were combined and analyzed.
- Results: Present the results of the search and selection process, ideally using a flow diagram. Summarize the characteristics and findings of the included studies. Evaluate the risk of bias and the certainty of the results.
- Discussion: Interpret the findings in the context of other evidence. Address the limitations of the evidence and methods. Consider the implications for practice and future research.
- Additional Information: Provide details on the registration and protocol of the review. List both financial and non-financial sources of support. Disclose any potential conflicts of interest among the authors. Indicate the availability of data and materials.
While other PRISMA resources may be useful for high-level publications or complex meta-analyses, for your studies, the most relevant parts are the flowchart and sections of the checklist.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!