PRISMA Reporting Guidelines Explained

PRISMA 2020 is filled from files a reviewer already keeps. Item 1, Title, is the title on the manuscript outline Title Page, with that page recorded on checklist item 1. Item 2, Abstract, is the abstract tab of the checklist, exported as PDF or Word. Item 3, Rationale, is the rationale field on the outline’s Introduction page. Item 7, Search strategy, is one search download per database. Item 16a, Study selection, is the flow diagram built from the export totals and the deduplication audit. Use these files to complete the relevant items, then check the remaining items against the manuscript. PRISMA guides reporting; it does not prescribe how to conduct the review.

The guideline behind that mapping is a 27-item checklist, a separate abstract checklist, and flow diagrams for original and updated reviews, and it replaced the 2009 statement (Page et al., BMJ 2021).

The item wording comes from the PRISMA 2020 statement. The checklist has the other items. The table maps five of them onto files this site already exports.

Five items, and the file that fills each one

Item	What you report	The file
1. Title	Identify the report as a systematic review.	Record the page number on checklist item 1, then export PDF or Word.
2. Abstract	See the PRISMA 2020 for Abstracts checklist.	The abstract tab of the checklist. The outline has no abstract page.
3. Rationale	Describe the rationale in the context of existing knowledge.	The rationale field on the outline Introduction page, in the Word, text, or PDF export.
7. Search strategy	The full strategies for every database, register, and website, including filters and limits.	A Search Builder download (Word, text, CSV, or JSON) for the database you built. That file is the appendix. One download is one database.
16a. Study selection	The path from records identified to studies included, ideally as a flow diagram.	The flowchart: PNG, SVG, or a PDF from the print dialog. Databases and duplicates removed come from the exports and the deduplication audit.

The builder keeps one selected database, so item 7 is one downloaded strategy per source, plus any translation you copied into the search log. Reporting that search is the job of PRISMA-S (Rethlefsen ML et al., Systematic Reviews, 2021;10:39). The search-builder example is how a question becomes those blocks. The deduplication guide is where per-database counts and removed duplicates are kept before they enter the figure.

When the identification counts do not match

Item 16a is that path from records identified to studies included. If the manuscript states one identification total and the flow diagram states another, the item is not met. The usual slip is to put the post-deduplication count in the databases box and a different number in the text.

Enter the original export totals and the audit’s duplicates-removed count. The worked handoff from dedupe counts to the flowchart shows why a duplicate group is not the same as a removed record. Download the RIS and audit before you leave the result. That run is not stored as a saved review. The checklist export records where you say each item appears. It does not check that the figure matches the paragraph.

Where the other numbers come from

Two sources of counts are easy to lose before write-up. The first is records found outside the databases: websites, organisations, and citation searching. They belong in the flow diagram's "other methods" column. Trial-register records belong in Registers, alongside databases in the identification column, and grey literature searching shows a search log that keeps date, string, hits, and new includes for each one. The second is the screening tally. On a large team, the coordinator's batch list is where those numbers live; managing large-scale reviews lists the columns to keep.

A rapid review reports against the same checklist and also states which steps were abbreviated; rapid review methods covers that. Keep the checklist export, flowchart file, and search downloads in the review folder, because a browser draft is not a backup (saving your SRT work). Using the checklist this way gives you a report aligned with PRISMA 2020. Whether a journal accepts it is still the editor's decision.