Managing and reporting

Writing your methods section and PRISMA flowchart

Writing your methods section is an important part of the systematic review process and documenting your search process will be crucial for this part of your review (for more information about documenting your search process, see the "Search logs & reporting" section of this guide).

A widely used reporting guideline called the PRISMA 2020 Statement is useful to consult at this stage of your systematic review. PRISMA can provide you with ways to ensure that your reporting is complete and transparent. It is available as a checklist and flow diagram – links and descriptions are provided below.

• PRISMA 2020 checklist: The checklist consists of 27 items that are used to address the introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of your systematic review (PDF and Word formats available).
• PRISMA 2020 flow diagram: The flow diagram shows information flow through different phases of your systematic review. It allows you to map out the number of records identified from databases, registers, and other sources, number of records included and excluded, and reasons for exclusion. There are different templates available (in Word format) for you to use and modify depending on the review type (new or updated), as well as the sources used when identifying the studies in your review.
• PRISMA extensions: Various extensions of the PRISMA Statement are available to help with reporting various aspects of and/or types of reviews (e.g., scoping reviews, PRISMA for protocols, PRISMA for searching, etc.).

For more information about citing PRISMA please visit the PRISMA page for Citing & using PRISMA.

For information about other reporting guidelines, please visit the section Search logs & reporting.