Summary Points
The abstract of a systematic review should provide a structured summary that enables a quick assessment of the review’s validity and applicability, and easy identification in electronic searching.
Despite published guidance on writing the abstract in the PRISMA Statement guiding the reporting of systematic reviews in general and elsewhere, evaluations show that reporting of systematic reviews in journal and conference abstracts is poor.
We developed consensus-based reporting guidelines as an extension to the PRISMA Statement on good reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in abstracts.
The PRISMA for Abstracts checklist gives authors a framework for condensing their systematic review into the essentials for an abstract that will meet the needs of many readers.