Covidence is a program used for title screening, data abstraction, quality evaluation, and full-text screening. Covidence was created by researchers familiar with the systematic review method to make it easier to perform reviews.
How to do Screening in Covidence?
When you’ve finished your literature search and gathered all of your citations, it’s time to screen the results. The screening is to weed out research that doesn’t fulfill your criteria for inclusion. All research should be screened by two independent reviewers, with the title and abstract screening coming first, followed by the full-text screening. A third reviewer should resolve any disagreements.
Each reviewer should read the abstract and title for each reference during the title/abstract screening and make the following any of the three decisions:
- This item appears to fit the requirements for inclusion and should proceed to the full-text screening stage.
- The article does not include the criteria for inclusion in the systematic review and should be excluded.
- The title/abstract does not provide enough information to decide (move to full-text screening stage).
Read the full-text for each reference during the full-text screening and make a decision:
- This article fits the criteria for inclusion in the systematic review and should be included.
- This article does not meet the requirements for inclusion and should be excluded from the systematic review.
What is PRISMA, and how it is useful?
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) is an acronym for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. It is a minimum set of items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses that is evidence-based.
The PRISMA Flowchart assists authors in better reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Although PRISMA is not a quality evaluation tool for determining the quality of a systematic review, it may be useful for critical appraisal of published systematic reviews.
A 27-item checklist and a four-phase flow diagram make up the PRISMA Flowchart. The list comprises items deemed necessary for transparent, systematic review reporting.
How to create PRISMA Flowchart?
- Take a print out a copy of the diagram
- Do the Preliminary data Research
- Mention the additional sources
- Using Endnote, remove all duplicates
- Add the screening Articles
- Screen and do exclusion
- Check the eligibility criteria
To prepare for screening, export the database search results to EndNote. EndNote Desktop is preferred over EndNote Web for compatibility and ease of online courses.
Conclusion
The Title screening and assessment demonstrated the potential of including medical researchers in screening titles for systematic reviews. To improve the quality of systemic review processes, non-expert groups and developing techniques for title screening be examined further.
The success of screening depends on a systematic and disciplined strategy. A significant amount of data must be sorted in an organized manner, with the procedures correctly and transparently reported. Covidence lets you complete your review fast and efficiently by automating the repetitive screening processes.