Table 1.

Defining characteristics of traditional literature reviews, scoping reviews and systematic reviews

	Traditional Literature Reviews	Scoping reviews	Systematic reviews
A priori review protocol	No	Yes (some)	Yes
PROSPERO registration of the review protocol	No	Noa	Yes
Explicit, transparent, peer reviewed search strategy	No	Yes	Yes
Standardized data extraction forms	No	Yes	Yes
Mandatory Critical Appraisal (Risk of Bias Assessment)	No	Nob	Yes
Synthesis of findings from individual studies and the generation of ‘summary’ findingsc	No	No	Yes

^aCurrent situation; this may change in time. ^bCritical appraisal is not mandatory, however, reviewers may decide to assess and report the risk of bias in scoping reviews. ^cBy using statistical meta-analysis (for quantitative effectiveness, or prevalence or incidence, diagnostic accuracy, aetiology or risk, prognostic or psychometric data), or meta-synthesis (experiential or expert opinion data) or both in mixed methods reviews