Table 2

Inclusion and exclusion criteria determining acceptable reviews

Criteria for inclusionCriteria for exclusion
At least one of the following minimum criterion required in the abstract:

  • A review of literature or documents that were not primary research, for example, a review of websites or industry documents

  • Cataloguing various policies across jurisdictions rather than reporting on evaluation of a policy

  • An analysis of various methodological approaches

  • Number of articles retrieved

  • Date range

  • Databases searched

Combined with one of the following criteria:

  • Search terms used

  • Literature review—is a term or label to describe the article rather than reporting as a verb: “to review….”

  • Used terms such as “comprehensive review” OR “comprehensive search” OR “systematic review” OR “systematic search”