Table 1.

Literature search flow

	Contractor search	Shiny R quality check in contractor excluded	Hand search in contractor excluded	Complementary search by EFSA	Upgrade contractor search by EFSA	Upgrade complementary search by EFSA	Hand search by EFSA	TOTAL	Developmental readiness
Initial hits	7,280	1,037	n/a	4,681	4,249 + 661b	1,877 + 446b	n/a	19,194a	1,412
Included full‐text screening step 1	352	107	n/a	477	271 + 32b	115 + 22b	n/a	1,376	84
Included in full‐text screening step 2	162	56	29	102	140 + 0b	21 + 0b	87	597	27
Duplicates	n/a	−2	n/a	−50	−41	−2	n/a	−95	n/a
Excluded full‐text screening step 2 (without duplicates)	−44	−24	−10	−26	−65	−12	−40	−221	−12
Included papers on prospective studies	111	14	7	20	22	3	24	201	15 + 8 hand search + 2 from SR
Included papers on retrospective studies	7	18	12	6	12	4	23	82	n/a

n/a: not applicable; SR: systematic review.

^aExcludes the 1,037 references re‐screened using Shiny R;

^bnumber of publications retrieved in the update of the search (limited to RCTs) performed during the time period when the draft Scientific Opinion was subjected to public consultation.