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Covidence

The purpose of this guide is to provide tutorials and resources for the standards based review tool, Covidence. This guide is aimed at graduate students, faculty, and others involved in the process who are interested in utilizing Covidence.

Title and Abstract Screening

After you've set up your review, created a protocol, and imported your references, it's time to begin the Title and Abstract Screening phase of your systematic review.

After clicking the drop down arrow to open up the menu, you will see the number of articles to screen on the right and stats on the left. At any point you can adjust the Team Settings. Click Continue and you can begin screening.

 

Tips for Success

It can be very tempting to want to stop and read the entire article during this stage, but DO NOT DO THIS! You will read articles in their entirety during the Full Text Review stage. Here are some tips on staying focused and productive during this stage:

  • Don't spend too much time one each abstract - the three options (Yes, No, Maybe) are there to help keep the flow of the review going
  • Utilize the "Tagging" feature for articles that you aren't including in the review, but still provide context or interest
    • Example: If there are articles that don't meet the inclusion criteria but are still of interest, consider tagging them as "Background" and reading them at a later date

Watch the video below, or read Covidence's articles on title and abstract screening for additional assistance.