Systematic vs Scoping Review – From ResearchGate

Scoping and systematic reviews are a bit related but differs in these key areas:
I would like to comment that Systematic reviews are a type of literature review that uses
systematic methods to collect secondary data critically appraise research studies, and
synthesize studies. Systematic reviews formulate research questions that are broad or
narrow in scope and identify and synthesize studies that directly relate to the systematic
review question. They are designed to provide a complete exhaustive summary of current
evidence relevant to a research question. Systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials
are key to the practice of evidence-based medicine and a review of existing studies is often
quicker and cheaper than embarking on a new study. An understanding of systematic
reviews, and how to implement them in practice, is highly recommended for professionals
involved in the delivery of health care. Besides health interventions, systematic reviews may
examine clinical tests, public health interventions, environmental interventions social
interventions, adverse effects, and economic evaluations. Systematic reviews are not limited
to medicine and are quite common in all other sciences where data are collected, published
in the literature, and an assessment of methodological quality for a precisely defined subject
would be helpful.
The main stages of a systematic review are:
1.Defining a question and agreeing an objective method.
2.A search for relevant data from research that matches certain criteria. For example, only
selecting research that is good quality and answers the defined question. Contacting a
trained information professional or librarian can improve the quality of the systematic review.
3.'Extraction' of relevant data. This can include how the research was done (often called the
method or 'intervention'), who participated in the research (including how many people), how
it was paid for (for example funding sources) and what happened (the outcomes).
4.Assess the quality of the data by judging it against criteria identified at the first stage.
5. Analyse and combine the data (using complex statistical methods) which give an overall
result from all of the data. This combination of data can be visualised using a blobbogram
(also called a forest plot). The diamond in the blobbogram represents the combined results
of all the data included. Because this combined result uses data from more sources than just
one data set, it's considered more reliable and better evidence, as the more data there is,
the more confident we can be of conclusions.
Once these stages are complete, the review may be published disseminated and translated
into practice after being adopted as evidence.
A scoping review (also scoping study) refers to a rapid gathering of literature in a given
policy or clinical area where the aims are to accumulate as much evidence as possible and
map the results. Scoping studies (or reviews) are a method used to comprehensively map
evidence across a range of study designs in an area, with the aim of informing future
research practice, programs and policy. However, no universal agreement exists on
terminology, definition or methodological steps. Scoping searches are fairly brief searches of
existing literature designed to help you gain an overview of the range and depth of research
that exists for a particular research idea. It can cover published work and discover on-going
studies.
Scoping reviews are exploratory projects that systematically map the literature on a topic,
identifying key concepts, theories and sources of evidence. It is important to understand the
differences between review types (see Grant et al, 2009 and Reynen et al, 2017). Scoping
reviews aim to address broader, more complex, and exploratory research questions as
opposed to systematic reviews which are designed to answer precisely defined, narrow
questions. Searching in the scoping review should be systematic. CIHR describes scoping
reviews thus they entail the systematic selection, collection and summarization of existing
knowledge in a broad thematic area." Scoping reviews are often conducted before full
syntheses, and undertaken when feasibility of the research is considered to be a challenge,
either because the relevant literature is thought to be vast and diverse (varying by methods,
theoretical orientations and disciplines) and/or it is thought that little literature exists. In the
scoping review, the same systematic, rigorous methodologies used by the systematic review
are used to find studies and extract data. Analyses and syntheses are part of every scoping
review but the depth and type of analysis are different. Scoping reviews are commonly used
to better understand phenomena and to evaluate where research on a topic has or has not
been completed. Scoping reviews are often a first step in conducting a systematic review
because they allow researchers to see where there are data points in the larger literature
landscape. This is valuable for evaluating whether or not a systematic review is a feasible or
viable option in some cases. Systematic reviews are commonly completed to show
comparative effectiveness of some interventions and meta-analysis is usually done in these
types of studies. Scoping reviews entail systematic selection, collection and summaries of
existing knowledge to identify where there is sufficient evidence to conduct a full synthesis or
where insufficient evidence exists and further primary research is necessary.
A scoping review (also scoping study) refers to a rapid gathering of literature in a given
policy or clinical area where the aims are to accumulate as much evidence as possible and
map the results. Scoping reviews are a type of literature review that aims to provide an
overview of the type, extent and quantity of research available on a given topic. By ‘mapping’
existing research, a scoping review can identify potential research gaps and future research
needs, and do so by using systematic and transparent methods. The term ‘scoping review’
does not seem to have a commonly-accepted definition but several researchers such as
Arksey & O’Malley, 2005, Anderson et al, 2008 and Davis, 2009 have attempted definitions.
In 2010, Rumrill et al said that " scoping reviews are efficient ways of identifying themes and
trends in high-volume areas of scientific inquiry." Generally, a scoping review is an iterative
process whereby existing literature is identified, examined and conceptually mapped, and
where gaps are identified. Think of a scoping review as a first step in doing a systematic
review or large study. Given the "scope" of a scoping review, their aim is to establish what
research has been published on specific topics and disciplinary areas (including reviews of
policies, practices and research). The literature search in a scoping review should be as
extensive as possible, and include a range of relevant databases, hand searches and
attempts to identify unpublished literature. Often, the underlying aim of a scoping review is to
explore the literature as opposed to answering specific questions. The scoping review
should also include locating organizations and individuals that are relevant to the domain
and what those groups have published. In the social sciences, scoping studies are
performed at an initial stage of doing research (ie. program, project, process, or grant).
Scoping reviews are used in some research areas to justify further investigation, time and
resources.
According to Grant and Booth (2009), there are some characteristic features of scoping
reviews that can be used to distinguish them from other types of reviews:
1. Preliminary assessment of size and scope of available research literature
2. Aims to identify nature and extent of research evidence (usually including ongoing
research)
3. Completeness of searching determined by time/scope constraints May include research in
progress
4. No formal quality assessment
5. Typically tabular with some narrative commentary
6. Characterizes quantity and quality of literature, perhaps by study design and other key
features
7. Attempts to specify a viable review