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Systematic Reviews for Social Sciences

Mapping Review

Mapping reviews are focused on a visual synthesis of the data and are question based rather than topic based like the scoping review.

Mapping Reviews may be best designed for:

  • When there is an abundance and a diversity of research.
  • As a first step to a systematic review.
  • To identify gaps in a topic area.

Limitations:

  • The broad nature and rapid search may mean that some articles will be missed.
  • May take time and require additional expertise or training for creating the visual output.
  • Inconsistency in the conduct of mapping reviews.

 

Outline of Stages

Timeframe: 12+ months, about same amount of time as a systematic review or longer.  

Question: Questions are of a wider scope than a systematic review. A priori review protocol is recommended.

Sources and searches: Rapid as time allows searching aimed to give a broad overview, still aims to be thorough and repeatable.  In some cases a mapping review may be limited to a certain type of article--may be limited to just review articles, just peer reviewed journals or just grey literature/research in progress.  Must include a PRISMA flow diagram.

Selection: Based on inclusion/exclusion criteria.  May require more time spent screening articles due to the larger volume of studies from covering a wider scope.  Also necessary to group studies for the mapping of included studies.

Appraisal: None, only if appropriate, includes a quality assessment of study bias/validity.

Synthesis: (Graphical or Tabular, less narrative) Visual synthesis and classification of the available studies. A high level map visualizing the status of the field related to the research question.

(Sources: Petticrew and Roberts (2006), Peterson et al. (2008), Booth et al. (2016).