5.2.10.1 Description of included papers

The presentation of results should identify how many textual evidence texts were identified and selected. There should be a narrative description of the search decision process accompanied by the search decision flowchart. This section should include the type and number of papers identified by the search and the number of papers that were included and excluded from the review. This should also highlight the type of textual evidence; whether narrative, expert opinion or policy.  A flowchart should be displayed according to the PRISMA 2020 approach outline by Page et al.³⁴

The results section should be framed in such a way that as a minimum, the following fields are described or given consideration by the reviewers in preparing their systematic review report: number of textual evidence texts identified, number retrieved, number appraised, number excluded and overview of reasons for exclusion, and the final number of included textual evidence papers.

The results section then focuses on providing a detailed description of the results of the review. Where a systematic review has several foci, the results should be presented in a logical, structured way, relevant to the specific questions. The role of tables and appendices should not be overlooked. Adding extensive detail on studies in the results section may ‘crowd’ the findings, making them less accessible to readers, hence the use of tables, graphs and in text reference to specific appendices is encouraged.