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Teaching Case — Counts With No Account

The eligibility box exists so that every report excluded at full text has a reason written against it. This review lists one exclusion with no reason at all and repeats another reason on two separate lines — the figure draws four lines and a reader counts four reasons, when the document describes three. Both are reporting-practice findings rather than contradictions, so both are warnings: the arithmetic itself balances exactly.

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School feeding programmes — review1,455 records identified · 4 exclusion reasonsIdentificationScreeningEligibilityIncludedRecords identified from:n = 1,455Databases: 1,420 · Registers: 35Records removed before screeningn = 355Duplicates removed: 300Excluded by automation: 55Records screened (title / abstract)n = 1,100Records excluded by reviewern = 860Reports sought for retrievaln = 240Reports not retrievedn = 12Reports assessed for eligibilityn = 228Reports excluded:n = 143Wrong population: n = 64Wrong population: n = 21(no reason given): n = 18No nutritional outcome: n = 40Studies included in reviewn = 852 things are probably not what was meant; the arithmetic itself balances.WARNAn exclusion of 18 reports has no reason written against it. A count with no account is the one thing this box exists to prevent.WARN"Wrong population" is listed 2 times, as 64 and 21. The figure draws 2 lines and a reader counts 2 reasons; write one line of 85.OKAll 10 stated counts are whole numbers of records.OKIdentification balances: 1,420 + 35 − 300 − 55 = 1,100 `title_screened`.OKScreening balances: 1,100 − 860 = 240 `abstracts_sought`.OKRetrieval balances: 240 − 12 = 228 `fulltext_assessed` (`other_sought` and `other_unavailable` are not stated and read as zero).OKEligibility balances: 228 − 143 = 85 `studies_included`.OKThe funnel descends: all 3 stage-to-stage comparisons hold — no count is larger than the one before it.

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title "School feeding programmes — review"

db_records 1420
register_records 35
duplicates 300
excluded_auto 55

title_screened 1100
title_excluded 860

abstracts_sought 240
abstracts_unavailable 12

fulltext_assessed 228
exclude_reason "Wrong population" 64
exclude_reason "Wrong population" 21
exclude_reason "" 18
exclude_reason "No nutritional outcome" 40

studies_included 85