REA Toolkit
What is a Rapid Evidence Assessment?
Quick scoping review
Not Systematic. Quick overview of research undertaken on a (constrained) topic
Time taken: 1 week to 2 months
A scoping review can be used to determine the range of studies that are available on a specific topic. This ‘map’ of the existing literature is undertaken with limited resources (particularly time); constrained by all or some of the following:
- Question: a delimited narrow focus (if a broad question then need to further limit search)
- Search: use few search sources (e.g. just one or two bibliographic database); use only key terms rather than extensive search of all variants; if there are many existing recent reviews, then consider a map of research in those reviews
- Screen: use only electronically available abstracts and texts
- Map: use only easily available sources; provide only simple description with limited analysis
Methods for reviewing evidence index
