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PRISMA 2020 flow templates

Teaching Case — More Reports Assessed Than Records Screened

Records only ever leave a review funnel, so every count must be no larger than the one before it. Here 640 reports are assessed for eligibility out of the 380 that were sought — 260 reports appear from nowhere, which no sequence of events could produce. It is decidable with no remainder at all, so it is caught even where the ledger cannot run, and it reads as a perfectly ordinary diagram: the boxes are the same size whatever numbers are in them.

Template previewPRISMA 2020 flow
Digital literacy interventions — scoping review900 records identified · 2 exclusion reasonsIdentificationScreeningEligibilityIncludedRecords identified from:n = 900Databases: 900Records removed before screening —duplicates removedn = 400Records screened (title / abstract)n = 500Records excluded by reviewern = 120Reports sought for retrievaln = 380260 more than enteredReports assessed for eligibilityn = 640Reports excluded:n = 480Not an intervention study: n = 300No literacy outcome: n = 180Studies included in reviewn = 1601 count in this flow contradicts another. 3 of 4 stages balance.ERROR640 reports assessed out of 380 reports sought. A record can leave this funnel but nothing can enter it after identification, so every count must be nolarger than the one before it — 260 records appear from nowhere.OKAll 7 stated counts are whole numbers of records.OKIdentification balances: 900 − 400 = 500 `title_screened` (`register_records` and `excluded_auto` are not stated and read as zero).OKScreening balances: 500 − 120 = 380 `abstracts_sought`.OKEligibility balances: 640 − 480 = 160 `studies_included`.OKAll 2 exclusion reasons are named and distinct, accounting for 480 reports.

Make it your own.

title "Digital literacy interventions — scoping review"

db_records 900
duplicates 400

title_screened 500
title_excluded 120

abstracts_sought 380

fulltext_assessed 640
exclude_reason "Not an intervention study" 300
exclude_reason "No literacy outcome" 180

studies_included 160