How to Conduct a PRISMA-Based Systematic Literature Review Step by Step

For a lot of master’s and PhD students, doing a PRISMA systematic literature reviewhas become a common requirement. It is especially used inhealth sciences, nursing, psychology, and social sciences. In contrast to a traditional literature review, PRISMA follows a structured and transparent process that identifies, screens, and reports research evidence. PRISMA is an internationally recognized framework.

In this guide, we are going to explain how to conduct a systematic literature review using the PRISMA approach. We will cover every stage from planning your review to reporting your findings. If you need additional research guidance, you can explore The Research Expert.

What Is PRISMA and Why Use It for Your Literature Review?

PRISMA is an internationally recognized reporting guideline that is designed to improve the quality and transparency of systematic reviews. PRISMA 2020 checklistconsists of 27-items and also includes a PRISMA flow diagram. Both of these help the researcher to explain their review easily.

The purpose of the checklist is that it helps to report every important part of the research. It includes research questions, search strategy, study selection, data collection, and results. The flow diagram visually shows how the research was conducted, screened, and included in the process.

Using the literature review PRISMA method helps the readers understand how the evidence was conducted and evaluated. This is why many universities now provide PRISMA guidelines for dissertations.

Step 1: Define Your Research Question and Protocol

Use a Structured Question Framework (e.g., PICO/PICOS)

You need to create a clear research question. You can use a framework such as PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) or PICOS (which also includes Study Design). These frameworks help to narrow your topic and also keep your review focused. It also helps to avoid unnecessary research.

Set Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Early

Before your research for studies, decide what publication types, date ranges, languages, and study designs will be included or excluded. Setting these criteria in advance will help to reduce research bias.

Consider Registering Your Protocol

You should register your systematic review protocol on PROSPERObefore starting the review. This adds credibility and prevents duplicate effort. It is very important for health-related reviews.

Step 2: Develop and Run a Systematic Search Strategy

Now, you need to search for relevant studies for your research questions. Choose databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, or PsycINFO. When you use more than one database, you can find a broader range of high-quality research.

You can use a search strategy, such as using Boolean operators such as AND/OR and field-specific keywords. You should also keep the exact search strings you used in each database, as it makes your review reproducible. It also helps others to understand exactly how the evidence was collected.

Step 3: Screen and Select Studies

Once the databases have been searched, eliminate any duplicate research to avoid including the same article more than once.

After that, go over the abstracts and titles and contrast them with your inclusion and exclusion criteria. To determine whether a study should be included in your review, read the entire article if it seems relevant.

Ask a different reviewer to review some of the studies as well, if at all feasible. This lessens prejudice and increases the credibility of your systematic review.

Step 4: Build the PRISMA Flow Diagram

One of the most important parts of a systematic review is the PRISMA flow diagram. It provides a visual summary of how the studies were selected for your review and makes the entire process easy to follow.

There are four stages of a flow diagram:

• Identification: Record how many studies were found through database searches and other sources.
• Screening: Show how many duplicate records were removed and how many titles and abstracts were screened.
• Eligibility: Record how many full-text articles were assessed and explain why any studies were excluded.
• Included: Show the final number of studies that met your criteria and were included in the review.

Make sure that the number in your flow diagram always matches the information described in your methodology. Keeping accurate records of every stage makes your review more reliable.

Step 5: Extract Data and Assess Study Quality

Once the final studies have been chosen, compile the relevant information from each one into a standardized data extraction table. Details including the study design, sample size, participants, methodology, important findings, and other variables related to your research issue are typically included in this table.
Additionally, you should use a suitable assessment or risk-of-bias method to evaluate each study’s quality. The kind of studies you include in your review will determine the instrument you select. Evaluating research quality increases the overall credibility of your evaluation and helps you determine how much faith you can put in the given data.

Step 6: Synthesize Findings and Report According to PRISMA

The next stage is to compile your findings after gathering the data. You can use a narrative synthesis to illustrate the key themes and findings if the research differs greatly from one another. A meta-analysis can be used to aggregate the findings if the studies are sufficiently similar.

Make sure you have included everything in your dissertation by using the PRISMA 2020 checklist. Your research question, search strategy, study selection procedure, quality assessment, and analysis of the results should all be explained in detail in your methods section. This makes your review more comprehensive, understandable, and clear.

You might look at dissertation writing services if you need help planning or writing your review chapter.

Common Mistakes Students Make With PRISMA Reviews

Many students make common mistakes that lower the quality of their systematic reviews. Here are some of them:

• Students skip the protocol registration or change the inclusion criteria after reviewing the results. This can introduce bias in the research.
• Many of the students don’t include the exact search strings of each database, which can make the review difficult to reproduce.
• Creating a PRISMA flow diagram that does not match the numbers in the methodology section.
• Treating PRISMA as simple formatting instead of following it as a complete research methodology.

If you avoid these common mistakes, you will produce a more rigorous and trustworthy literature review.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does PRISMA stand for?

PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. It is a framework for systematic reviews and includes a checklist and a flow diagram to make the research transparent and easily reproducible.

Do I need to register my systematic review protocol before starting?

It is not always required, but registering your protocol on a platform such as PROSPERO is highly recommended,especially for health-related reviews.

What is a PRISMA flow diagram?

A PRISMA flow diagram is a visual summary of the study selection process. It shows how many studies were identified, screened, assessed for eligibility, and finally included in the review.

Is PRISMA only used in medical or health research?

No, PRISMA can be used in education, psychology, business, social sciences, and many other disciplines that require systematic reviews.

What’s the difference between a systematic review and a narrative literature review?

A systematic review follows a planned and structured methodology for searching, selecting, and analyzing the studies. However, a narrative literature review is more flexible and does not follow a standardized methodology.

Conclusion

A PRISMA turns a literature review into a structured, transparent, and replicable piece of research. You can follow the above 6 systematic review methodology steps to conduct your systematic review. If you need additional support, you can ask an expert to Do My Dissertation For Me or reach out to us through our contact us page.