Understanding Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

What is the main purpose of inclusion criteria in a systematic literature review?

• To decide which studies should be excluded

• To specify which studies are relevant and should be included

• To reduce the number of search results randomly

• To summarize the findings of included studies

What is the role of exclusion criteria?

• To make the review longer by adding more studies

• To remove studies that do not meet the inclusion criteria

• To select only studies that agree with your hypothesis

• To avoid doing a full search

Which of the following is a good example of an inclusion criterion?

• Excluding studies on animals

• Including studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 2018-2025

• Excluding duplicate records

• Excluding non-English studies

Why are inclusion and exclusion criteria written before screening begins?

• To save time and avoid bias in selecting studies

• To make the review more complicated

• To ensure only positive results are published

• To eliminate the need for a research question

Inclusion criteria are used to define what must be present in a study for it to be part of the review.

• False

• True

Exclusion criteria are unnecessary if inclusion criteria are already defined.

• False
• True

Well-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria make a review more transparent and replicable.

• True

• False