Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A scoping review mapping all qualitative studies on AI use in radiology workflows over 2018-2024
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A focused systematic review of one intervention's effects is not a scoping review (it is a systematic review)
Editorial commentary
A scoping review maps the breadth and nature of the evidence on a broad topic — characterising what exists, where it was published, and in what form — using systematic search methods, but without typically appraising individual study quality or attempting to synthesise effect estimates. It follows PRISMA-ScR (the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews), which uses a PCC (Population, Concept, Context) framing rather than the PICO framing common in systematic reviews of interventions.
How this differs from a systematic review
The two answer structurally different questions: a scoping review answers “what evidence exists on this topic, and where?”, while a systematic review answers a focused question such as “does this intervention work?” and involves formal appraisal of study quality that a scoping review typically omits. Scoping reviews are frequently conducted as a precursor step, to determine whether a full systematic review is feasible and worthwhile, or as a standalone output when the underlying question is genuinely descriptive rather than evaluative. Notably, PROSPERO — the prospective register most systematic reviews use — explicitly excludes scoping reviews from eligibility for registration, regardless of topic.
Example
A scoping review mapping the qualitative literature on a given technology’s use within a specific clinical or research workflow across a defined date range, cataloguing study designs and settings without pooling any outcomes.
Also known as
Scoping study · Evidence map
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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