The purpose of this article is to provide practical guidance for reviewers on when to perform a systematic review or a scoping review, supported with some key examples. As editors and peer reviewers for various journals we have noticed that there is inconsistency and confusion regarding the indications for scoping reviews and a lack of clarity for authors regarding when a scoping review should be performed as opposed to a systematic review. However, the guidance regarding the key indications or reasons why reviewers may choose to follow a scoping review approach is not as straightforward, with scoping reviews often conducted for purposes that do not align with the original indications as proposed by Arksey and O’Malley.
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There now exists clear guidance regarding the definition of scoping reviews, how to conduct scoping reviews and the steps involved in the scoping review process. Scoping reviews are now seen as a valid approach in those circumstances where systematic reviews are unable to meet the necessary objectives or requirements of knowledge users. More recently, the field of evidence synthesis has seen the emergence of scoping reviews, which are similar to systematic reviews in that they follow a structured process, however they are performed for different reasons and have some key methodological differences. Today, systematic reviews are conducted for a wide range of purposes across diverse fields of inquiry, different evidence types and for different questions. With the emergence of groups such as Cochrane and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) in the 1990s, reviews have exploded in popularity both in terms of the number conducted, and their uptake to inform policy and practice. Systematic reviews in healthcare began to appear in publication in the 1970s and 1980s. Our hope is that with clear guidance available regarding whether to conduct a scoping review or a systematic review, there will be less scoping reviews being performed for inappropriate indications better served by a systematic review, and vice-versa. Although conducted for different purposes compared to systematic reviews, scoping reviews still require rigorous and transparent methods in their conduct to ensure that the results are trustworthy. Scoping reviews are a useful tool in the ever increasing arsenal of evidence synthesis approaches. While useful in their own right, scoping reviews may also be helpful precursors to systematic reviews and can be used to confirm the relevance of inclusion criteria and potential questions.
Researchers may conduct scoping reviews instead of systematic reviews where the purpose of the review is to identify knowledge gaps, scope a body of literature, clarify concepts or to investigate research conduct. The purpose of this article is to clearly describe the differences in indications between scoping reviews and systematic reviews and to provide guidance for when a scoping review is (and is not) appropriate. Scoping reviews are a relatively new approach to evidence synthesis and currently there exists little guidance regarding the decision to choose between a systematic review or scoping review approach when synthesising evidence.
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