A scoping review may often be a preliminary stage before a systematic review, which 'scopes' out an area of inquiry and maps the language and key concepts. A key difference between scoping reviews and systematic reviews is that in terms of a review question, a scoping review will have a broader “scope” than traditional systematic reviews with correspondingly more expansive inclusion criteria.
The purpose of this article is to clearly describe the differences in indications between scoping reviews and systematic reviews and to provide guidance for when a scoping review is (and is not) appropriate.
