Library Guides: Scoping Reviews: Determine inclusion/exclusion criteria

What are inclusion and exclusion criteria

Generally inclusion and exclusion criteria are set before doing a review. However, in a scoping review the criteria may not be known until after some initial searching and review of results. Therefore criteria may also be created during or after the review process.

These criteria are usually applied to the results of a search and are not used to limit the search results.

Many of the criteria are determined by the elements of the question, such as limiting selected papers by the population, participants or problem under investigation, the type of intervention and outcomes, and the context in which the question is being asked.

The type of question being asked may also determine the inclusion or exclusion criteria for types of studies which may be used in the review.

JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis: Scoping Reviews: Inclusion Criteria

Example:

Does the use of chlorhexidine mouthwash reduce gingivitis?
Included:	Criteria type:	Excluded:	Criteria type:
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs)	study design	studies where the duration of mouthrinsing was less than 4 weeks	study design
duration of mouthrinsing was at least 4 weeks	study design	cross-over studies in case chlorhexidine could exert an effect beyond the washout period	study design / confounding factor
children or adults with gingivitis or periodontitis capable of performing normal mechanical oral hygiene procedures	population & condition	where chlorhexidine mouthrinse was used as a monotherapy in the absence of mechanical oral hygiene procedures	study design
chlorhexidine mouthrinse (used at any concentration, volume, frequency or duration of rinsing) used in conjunction with mechanical oral hygiene procedures	exposure of interest	where the chlorhexidine mouthrinse formed part of a combined intervention with other agents that the comparator arm(s) did not receive	study design / confounding factor
		where the mechanical oral hygiene procedures were not the same in both the chlorhexidine mouthrinse and the comparator arm(s)	study design / confounding factor
		where chlorhexidine mouthrinse was applied locally e.g. with a brush or via subgingival irrigation	study design / confounding factor
		where gingivitis was not measured using a recognised index/scale.	study design

Limiting the search

Depending on the scope and size of the review, limits to the search may or may not apply.

Some common limiters often applied to searches do not always apply as using limits at the search stage may omit relevant results from the review. However, in other cases they may be used.

Two of the most common limiters that may be applied at the search stage of systematic and similar reviews are date and language.

Date range:

Topics should not be limited by date if there is no clear date that applies.

However some topics will be limited by date by the nature of the question being asked.

Examples of this may be:

When a particular treatment started being used.
When a policy or regulation became adopted.
When an older review is being updated to include new information.

Language:

In thorough reviews, results should not be limited by language and results in other languages should be translated if possible.

However this is not always possible, especially for reviews being undertaken by individuals.

If results are limited by language, this should be noted as a limitation of the review.