plot_PRISMA: Plots and creates a PRISMA flow diagram.

In metagear: Comprehensive Research Synthesis Tools for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis

Description

Creates a PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flow diagram depicting the 'flow' of study inclusions and exclusions during various systematic review phases. It is meant to describe the number of studies identified, included, excluded, reasons for inclusion/exclusions, and final number of studies used in the meta-analysis. NOTE: currently only supports two start phases, and final phase must not have an exclude branch.

Usage

plot_PRISMA(
  aPhaseVector,
  colWidth = 30,
  excludeDistance = 0.8,
  design = "classic",
  hide = FALSE
)

Arguments

aPhaseVector	A vector of ordered labels (strings) for each phase of the PRISMA diagram. Labels designating the beginning of the diagram are commented with "START_PHASE: " and those designating exclusion phases "EXCLUDE_PHASE: ". These comments will be removed from the diagram.
colWidth	An optional value (integer) designating the width of the text box of each phase.
excludeDistance	An optional value designating the the distance of exclude phase box from the main flow diagram. Larger values (> 0.8) increase this distance.
design	Designates the colorscheme and design of the the flow diagram. The default is classic (as in versions of metagear prior to v. 0.4). Others schemes are also available with color and more flat designs, and these can be further customized; see NOTE below for these details.
hide	When FALSE, the PRISMA flow diagram is not plotted.

Value

a grid object (grob) list

Note

Using canned or custom PRISMA design layouts

There are several color schemes and design layouts (e.g. curved or flat) available. These designs include: cinnamonMint, sunSplash, pomegranate, vintage, grey, and greyMono. Custom schemes can also be developed by modifying each aspect of the design. These are:

S

color of start phases (default: white)

P

color of the main phases (default: white)

E

color of the exclusion phases (default: white)

F

color of the final phase (default: white)

fontSize

the size of the font (default: 12)

fontColor

the font color (default: black)

fontFace

either plain, bold, italic, or bold.italic (default: plain)

flatArrow

arrows curved when FALSE (default); arrows square when TRUE

flatBox

boxes curved when FALSE (default); Boxes square when TRUE

For example, changing the defaults to have red rather than white exclusion phases, and square boxes, would be: design = c(E = "red", flatBox = TRUE).

References

Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J. and Altman, D.G., PRISMA Group. (2009) Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. BMJ 339, b2535.

Examples

phases <- c("START_PHASE: # of studies identified through database searching",
            "START_PHASE: # of additional studies identified through other sources",
            "# of studies after duplicates removed",
            "# of studies with title and abstract screened",
            "EXCLUDE_PHASE: # of studies excluded",
            "# of full-text articles assessed for eligibility",
            "EXCLUDE_PHASE: # of full-text excluded, not fitting eligibility criteria",
            "# of studies included in qualitative synthesis",
            "EXCLUDE_PHASE: # studies excluded, incomplete data reported",
            "final # of studies included in quantitative synthesis (meta-analysis)")
plot_PRISMA(phases, design = "cinnamonMint")

metagear documentation built on Feb. 15, 2021, 5:09 p.m.