I am a pre-doc researcher and I am conducting a scoping review together with my supervisor and another colleague. We recently submitted the protocol for review after spending a while editing the search terms. I am now conducting the first screening page and I have noticed that some studies that “should” show up aren’t among the results. I’ve realised that I need to include additional search terms as the current ones leave out a small but important portion of the work we want to talk about. Is it possible to edit the protocol at this stage? I feel the review wouldn’t be as meaningful if I didn’t include these studies.
Also, how common is it for this to happen? Did I mess up big time?
Comments
This happens sometimes. You can double check me in the Joanna Briggs institute manual for scoping review methodology but as long as you haven’t started your analysis I think it’s ok (sorry, redditing while sick and on mobile). You can also consider consulting a research librarian on your search strategy, if there are any at your institution who can support this work.