Scoping Reviews in Nursing Research
How to map a field of evidence and decide whether a scoping review fits your question.
How to map a field of evidence and decide whether a scoping review fits your question.
Understand the purpose of a scoping review
A scoping review maps what evidence exists about a topic and helps clarify how researchers have approached it. It can be useful when nursing literature covers several study designs, settings or definitions that are not yet easy to compare. The purpose is different from estimating the effect of one intervention. A scoping review may show where evidence is concentrated, which concepts are used and which questions have received little attention.
Consider a nursing student interested in how digital tools are used to support discharge planning. The available literature might include qualitative interviews with nurses, observational studies of workflow and evaluations of different technologies. Asking which single tool works best may be premature because the interventions and outcomes are too varied. Mapping the approaches, populations and settings could provide a more useful first step.
A scoping review is not an easier systematic review with fewer rules. It requires a transparent question, a documented search and a clear explanation of how evidence will be selected and charted. Its value comes from answering a mapping question well rather than making claims about effectiveness that the review was not designed to establish.
A scoping review is particularly helpful when the literature spans several professions, research designs or ways of defining the same concept. Imagine a nursing team interested in digital tools used to support family caregivers after hospital discharge. The evidence may include interviews with carers, feasibility studies of mobile applications, service evaluations and descriptive reports of implementation. Before asking which intervention is most effective, the team may need to understand which tools have been studied, who uses them and what outcomes researchers have considered. Mapping that landscape can reveal areas of concentration and neglect. The result is not a shortcut around critical thinking. It is a different form of inquiry whose conclusions must stay within the purpose and methods of the review.
Decide whether the question calls for mapping or synthesis
The first decision is whether the research aim concerns the extent and character of evidence or the answer to a more focused effectiveness question. A question about the range of nurse led interventions used to support family caregivers may suit a scoping review. A question asking whether a particular intervention reduces caregiver burden compared with usual care may require a systematic review of effectiveness. The distinction shapes the search, eligibility criteria and eventual conclusions.
Students sometimes choose a scoping review because they expect it to require less work, but broad mapping questions can produce very large numbers of records. The topic needs boundaries that are defensible and practical. Defining a particular population, healthcare context or conceptual focus can keep the review manageable without turning it into a narrow intervention comparison.
Before committing, search for existing reviews on the topic. An earlier scoping review does not necessarily make a new one redundant, particularly when the field has changed or the new question differs meaningfully. The proposal should explain what the new review will add and why the chosen approach is appropriate. This rationale is stronger than claiming that no review exists without conducting a careful preliminary search.
Use population, concept and context to frame the question
JBI guidance commonly uses population, concept and context to help structure scoping review questions. The population identifies whose experiences or care are relevant, the concept describes the main issue being mapped and the context clarifies the setting or circumstances. Not every question requires a highly restrictive population, but the framework encourages students to explain the scope of the review.
For example, a review could map approaches to supporting medication self management among adults receiving community nursing services. Adults would define the population, self management support the concept and community nursing the context. The student would then need to clarify what counts as support, whether digital and face to face approaches are included and which service settings fall within the definition of community nursing.
These choices should be made before the full search begins because they guide eligibility criteria. They may still be refined after an initial exploration of the literature, provided changes are documented and justified. The objective is to make the review reproducible and understandable rather than to pretend that every decision was obvious from the beginning.
Population, concept and context should be defined together because a change to one element can alter the entire review. For example, a review of communication technology used by community nurses differs from a review of technology used by patients to contact any healthcare professional. Both may be worthwhile but they answer different questions. Context may refer to geographical setting, level of care or a particular service environment, depending on the topic. Students should explain why a boundary is necessary rather than applying restrictions merely because they simplify searching. A preliminary examination of relevant papers can reveal whether the proposed terms are used consistently. If the concept remains vague, write a short working definition and refine it before screening begins.
Develop a protocol before screening evidence
A protocol records the planned question, eligibility criteria, information sources and approach to charting results. It provides a reference point when difficult decisions arise during screening. Without one, students may gradually change the scope in response to the studies they happen to find, which makes the final review harder to interpret.
The protocol should describe the types of evidence that will be considered and why. Depending on the question, this may include qualitative studies, quantitative studies, mixed methods research or relevant reports. Grey literature can be important for practice focused nursing topics, but it requires clear rules about what will be searched and included. The student should explain language restrictions and date limits rather than adopting them without justification.
Consult the relevant institutional guidance and the latest JBI methodological resources when preparing the protocol. The JBI scoping review resources provide a useful starting point for checking the process. A protocol does not guarantee a perfect review, but it helps the researcher explain what was intended and how the work evolved.
Search broadly without losing control of the question
A scoping review search often needs to capture different ways of describing the same concept. Researchers should identify key terms, synonyms and database specific subject headings before building the search. Nursing topics may draw on biomedical databases, nursing indexes and interdisciplinary sources depending on the question. The choice of databases should be justified by the topic rather than copied from another review.
A preliminary search can reveal unexpected terminology. Studies of discharge technology may refer to electronic care plans, patient portals, transitional care platforms or digital communication tools. Searching only the phrase digital discharge may miss relevant evidence. Testing the strategy against known papers can help identify gaps before screening begins.
Document the search date, database, platform and full strategy. Keep a record of supplementary searching such as reference list checks and relevant organisational websites. For a formal scoping review, transparent reporting of sources is important because the final evidence map depends on what the search was able to retrieve. The aim is not to claim that every possible source has been found, but to make the approach open to assessment.
Search decisions should be recorded as the review develops. A search that works in one database may need adaptation elsewhere because subject headings and indexing practices differ. Keeping a record of each database, search date, search expression and result count supports transparency and later reporting. It is also worth discussing the treatment of conference abstracts, dissertations and organisational reports, especially when the topic concerns emerging practice. Grey literature may be informative but can introduce questions about completeness, access and the reliability of reporting. Language and date restrictions should be justified rather than imposed automatically. Where possible, ask a health sciences librarian to review the search approach before the team commits to screening a large set of records.
Screen studies consistently and record decisions
Screening begins by applying eligibility criteria to titles and abstracts before examining potentially relevant full texts. Students should define inclusion and exclusion rules carefully enough that another reader could understand the decisions. If a study includes both nurses and other professionals, decide in advance whether mixed profession evidence will be eligible and under what conditions.
A pilot screening exercise can expose ambiguous criteria before hundreds of records have been reviewed. It may reveal that the concept has been defined too broadly or that certain settings were not anticipated. Where a review team is available, independent screening and a process for resolving disagreements can improve consistency. Individual student projects should follow their programme's requirements and describe any limitations in the screening process.
A PRISMA style flow diagram can show the number of records identified, screened and excluded, although the correct reporting guidance for scoping reviews should be consulted. Our PRISMA Flow Builder can help organise the counts, but the underlying screening decisions must come from the actual review record. Numbers should never be estimated merely to complete a diagram.
Eligibility decisions are often harder than the protocol suggests. A paper may describe a mixed professional team without reporting nursing specific findings, or it may use a digital intervention that only partly matches the review concept. Pilot screening can help reviewers test whether their criteria are sufficiently clear. Discuss disagreements and revise ambiguous definitions before screening the full collection, while documenting any material protocol changes. If more than one reviewer is involved, establish how conflicts will be resolved. The purpose is not to make every decision mechanical, but to ensure that similar records receive similar treatment. Recording reasons for exclusion at the appropriate stage makes the final flow diagram more meaningful and allows readers to understand how the evidence map was constructed.
Chart the evidence in a purposeful way
Data charting is the process of recording information from included sources in a structured form. A charting table might capture publication year, country, care setting, study design, population, concept and relevant findings. The fields should follow the review question rather than becoming a long list of everything reported in each paper.
In a review of digital discharge support, it might be useful to record whether a tool is patient facing or clinician facing, how it is implemented and which outcomes or experiences were examined. That would allow the researcher to describe patterns across the field. If studies use very different definitions of successful implementation, the charting form should preserve those differences instead of forcing all findings into a single category.
Pilot the form on a small sample of studies and revise it when necessary. Keep an explanation of any changes so that the charting process remains transparent. The final table should help answer the mapping question and make the narrative easier to follow. It is not simply an appendix created to demonstrate that papers were read.
The charting form should reflect the review question rather than attempt to capture every detail available in each publication. In a review of nurse led digital follow up, relevant fields might include country, care setting, patient population, technology, nursing role, study design and the types of outcomes reported. Trial the form on a small set of papers and adjust it when important categories are missing or unclear. Changes should be documented so that earlier records can be revisited consistently. Descriptive tables may show how the evidence is distributed across settings or approaches, while narrative explanation can describe patterns that a table alone cannot convey. The team should resist interpreting the number of publications in a category as evidence that an intervention is effective.
Present the map without overstating the evidence
A scoping review can describe how evidence is distributed across countries, study designs and clinical settings. Tables and simple charts may show where research is concentrated, while narrative discussion can explain recurring concepts and important differences. The findings should remain connected to the original question rather than becoming an inventory of unrelated facts.
It is tempting to conclude that an intervention is effective when several included studies report positive outcomes. That may exceed the purpose of the review, particularly if the studies differ in design and quality. A scoping review can report that certain outcomes have been studied and describe the nature of the findings without making a pooled effectiveness claim. Critical appraisal is not always undertaken in scoping reviews, so readers need to know whether the included evidence was assessed and what that means for interpretation.
Discuss gaps precisely. A small number of studies in rural community settings may indicate limited published research in those contexts, but it does not prove that no relevant practice exists. Explain how the search scope and inclusion criteria shape the map. Such transparency makes the conclusions more useful to researchers planning the next study.
The discussion can identify questions that future researchers might investigate without presenting every empty category as an urgent research gap. A topic may be poorly represented because the relevant intervention is uncommon, terminology varies or studies have been reported outside the sources searched. Consider these possibilities before drawing strong conclusions. It is also important to explain the limits of the map. If critical appraisal was not undertaken, the review should not imply that frequently reported findings are necessarily trustworthy. If the review included only English language studies, readers need to know that its picture of international nursing practice may be incomplete. Good reporting helps practitioners use the map as a starting point for inquiry rather than mistaking it for a clinical recommendation.
Report the review with the right guidance
Scoping reviews have specific reporting considerations and should not simply borrow every convention from intervention systematic reviews. The PRISMA extension for scoping reviews, known as PRISMA ScR, is a relevant reporting resource. It helps authors describe the question, methods, sources, selection process and presentation of evidence in a way that readers can follow.
Use reporting guidance as a checklist for transparency rather than a substitute for sound methodology. A complete checklist cannot rescue unclear eligibility criteria or an inconsistent search. The writing should explain how the evidence was identified and what the review can reasonably say about the field. A limitations section should consider restrictions on language, databases, grey literature and screening procedures where relevant.
For students who later want to examine intervention effectiveness, a scoping review may reveal whether there is enough comparable evidence to justify a narrower synthesis. That possibility is one of the practical strengths of mapping a field carefully. The finished article should leave readers with a clearer understanding of what is known, what has been studied and which questions deserve closer investigation.
Before submission, compare the final manuscript with the protocol and the relevant reporting checklist. Make sure the title and objectives accurately identify the work as a scoping review, that the search and selection methods are described in enough detail to follow and that the results answer the stated mapping question. Check that figures and tables agree with the numbers reported in the text. A useful final test is to ask whether another reader could understand why particular sources were included and how the evidence categories were produced. The report should acknowledge deviations from the initial plan and explain their rationale. This level of transparency makes the review more valuable to nurses, educators and researchers who may build on its findings.
Research guidance and further reading
For scoping review methodology, compare methodological guidance against PCC eligibility, evidence charting and the boundaries of a mapping review and the expectations of your programme.
Need help planning your research?
Wondering whether a scoping review is the right fit? We can discuss your PCC framework, evidence mapping and the boundaries of your question.
Editorial note. Clinical examples are hypothetical and are not reports of actual patient outcomes. This guide is educational and does not replace clinical or institutional guidance.