Spreadsheet for systematic and scoping reviews

Systematic Review Screening Matrix

Two-reviewer title and abstract screening, full-text screening with exclusion reasons, conflict flags, Cohen's kappa, PRISMA flow counts and a data-extraction codebook in one workbook.

How it works

Records and title-abstract screening

The Records tab holds up to 300 records: title, authors, year, source database and identifier. A check flags titles that match an earlier row, and you decide whether each is a duplicate. On the Title-Abstract tab each reviewer chooses Include, Exclude or Maybe. A conflict flag appears when the two disagree about sending a record to full text, with Maybe counted as Include. You record the resolved decision and who resolved it, and the final decision fills in.

Full-text screening

The Full-Text tab lists records that were eligible after title and abstract, whether the full text was retrieved, each reviewer's decision and an exclusion reason from a dropdown you edit. Flags show disagreement about the decision and about the reason.

Agreement and PRISMA counts

For each stage the Agreement tab shows the 2 x 2 counts, observed agreement, expected agreement and Cohen's kappa as visible formulas, with a band from slight to almost perfect. Kappa is (observed agreement - expected agreement) / (1 - expected agreement), so you can check every input. The PRISMA tab counts records identified, duplicates removed, screened, excluded, sought, not retrieved, assessed, excluded by reason, included and records by source database, with box text you can paste into a diagram.

Dashboard and extraction

The dashboard shows progress bars for each reviewer at each stage, conflicts still open, both kappa values with a plain-language band, and studies included and awaiting extraction, with a chart of records at each stage. The Extraction tab has one row per included study: pick the record ID from a list and the title fills in. Column headings come from a codebook of up to 12 fields that you define on Setup.

What you get: one .xlsx workbook with the tabs Start Here, Dashboard, Setup, Records, Title-Abstract, Full-Text, Agreement, PRISMA and Extraction. The example rows use invented titles marked (Example) and no real papers; Start Here lists the ranges to clear. It records the decisions you and your second reviewer make and does the counting and kappa arithmetic. It does not screen records for you, does not import from reference managers or databases (you paste or type records in), and does not make a review rigorous or a PRISMA report compliant. That depends on your protocol and the PRISMA checklist.

Excel or Google Sheets

Open the .xlsx in Excel as it is. For Google Sheets, open a blank spreadsheet, choose File, Import, Upload, pick the .xlsx and choose "Replace spreadsheet". The chart can look slightly different in Sheets; the numbers are the same. Setup has a review-type dropdown, so scoping reviews fit, and you can edit the exclusion reasons and codebook. It also comes in the researcher bundle, six spreadsheets for $39.

Buy the spreadsheet, $14 All spreadsheets