The PRISMA Flow Diagram is a tool that can be used to record different stages of the literature search process--across multiple resources--and clearly show how a researcher went from, 'These are the databases I searched for my terms', to, 'These are the papers I'm going to talk about'.
PRISMA is not inflexible; it can be modified to suit the research needs of different people and, indeed, if you did a Google images search for the flow diagram you would see many different versions of the diagram being used. It's a good idea to have a look at a couple of those examples, and also to have a look at a couple of the articles on the PRISMA website to see how it has--and can--be used.
The PRISMA 2020 Statement was published in 2021. It consists of a checklist and a flow diagram, and is intended to be accompanied by the PRISMA 2020 Explanation and Elaboration document.
In order to encourage dissemination of the PRISMA 2020 Statement, it has been published in several journals.
There is also a PowerPoint version of the document but the file size is too large to upload here.
If you would like a copy, please email the Academic Librarians' mailbox from your university account to ask for it to be sent to you.
Thank you.
This is an example of how you could fill in the PRISMA flow diagram when conducting a new review. It is not a hard and fast rule but it should give you an idea of how you can use it.
For more detailed information, please have a look at this article:
Start using the flow diagram as you start searching the databases you've decided upon.
Make sure that you record the number of results that you found per database (before removing any duplicates) as per the filled in example. You can also do a Google images search for the PRISMA flow diagram to see the different ways in which people have used them to express their search processes.
You can access the various checklists via the Equator website and the articles explaining PRISMA and its various extensions are available via PubMed.
Page, M.J., McKenzie, J.E., Bossuyt, P.M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T.C., Mulrow, C.D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J.M., Akl, E.A., Brennan, S.E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J.M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M.M., Li, T., Loder, E.W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L.A., Stewart, L.A., Thomas, J., Tricco, A.C., Welch, V.A., Whiting, P., & Moher, D. (2021) 'The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews,' BMJ. Mar 29; 372:n71. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71.
Page, M.J., Moher, D., Bossuyt, P.M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T.C., Mulrow, C.D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J.M., Akl, E.A., Brennan, S.E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J.M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M.M., Li, T., Loder, E.W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L.A., Stewart, L.A., Thomas, J., Tricco, A.C., Welch, V.A., Whiting, P., & McKenzie, J.E. (2021) 'PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews', BMJ, Mar 29; 372:n160. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n160.
Page, M.J., McKenzie, J.E., Bossuyt, P.M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T.C., Mulrow, C.D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J.M., Akl, E.A., Brennan, S.E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J.M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M.M., Li, T., Loder, E.W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L.A., Stewart, L.A., Thomas, J., Tricco, A.C., Welch, V.A., Whiting, P., & Moher, D. (2021) 'The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews,' Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, June; 134:178-189. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2021.03.001.