EFHP 860: Critical Perspectives in Exercise, Fitness, and Health Promotion

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Scoping reviews are a specific type of strict-protocol literature review. They are often exploratory projects that map the literature available on a topic, identifying key concepts, theories, sources of evidence, and gaps in research. A scoping review may be done ahead of a systematic review; deciding which to do primarily comes down to the purpose of the review (JBI Reviewer's Manual). Four common reasons for scoping reviews are:

1. "Examining the extent, range and nature of research activity (to provide an overview of the available literature and identify key themes and research foci);
2. Determining the value of undertaking a full systematic review (for example by identifying the extent of relevant literature and absence of existing relevant review);
3. Summarizing and disseminating research findings across a body of research evidence;
4. Identifying research gaps in the existing literature to aid planning and commissioning of future research (for example, by identifying whether a research question has likely already been answered by existing studies and by refining the research questions and research methods for new studies to ensure that they are informed by existing studies) (Canadian Institutes of Health Research)."