PRISMA 2020: A Practical Introduction

PRISMA 2020 (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) is a reporting guideline. It tells you what to report, not how to conduct a review — but using it from the start helps you collect what you will need.

The 27-item checklist

The checklist covers the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and other information such as registration and funding. Several items have sub-items, such as reporting the full search strategy for all databases.

The flow diagram

The PRISMA flow diagram records records identified, duplicates removed, records screened and excluded, reports assessed for eligibility with reasons for exclusion, and studies included. Keep counts as you go — reconstructing them later is difficult.

Register a protocol

Registering on PROSPERO (for health-related reviews) before screening begins improves transparency and reduces duplication.

Use it as a working tool

Keep the checklist open during protocol writing, searching, screening and writing up. Completing it at the end often reveals gaps that are hard to fix.

Related extensions

Extensions exist for specific review types, such as PRISMA-ScR for scoping reviews and PRISMA-S for reporting literature searches.