PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) has been designed to help authors transparently report why their systematic review was done, what methods they used, and what they found.
The PRISMA 2020 statement has been designed primarily for systematic reviews of studies that evaluate the effects of health interventions, irrespective of the design of the included studies. However, the checklist items are applicable to reports of systematic reviews evaluating other interventions (such as social or educational interventions), and many items are applicable to systematic reviews with objectives other than evaluating interventions (such as evaluating aetiology, prevalence, or prognosis). PRISMA 2020 is intended for use in systematic reviews that include synthesis (such as pairwise meta-analysis or other statistical synthesis methods) or do not include synthesis (for example, because only one eligible study is identified). It consists of a checklist and a flow diagram, and is intended to be accompanied by the PRISMA 2020 Explanation and Elaboration paper.
PRISMA offers a range of extensions including for scoping reviews, diagnostic test accuracy and individual patient data among others.
PRISMA is the one of the most widely used reporting guidelines for systematic reviews.
'PRISMA 2020 flow diagram' by PRISMA, licensed under CC-BY 4.0. You can download an accessible version of this flowchart at https://www.prisma-statement.org/s/PRISMA_2020_flow_diagram_new_SRs_v1-lml8.docx
Other PRISMA flow diagrams:
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