Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
Establishing inclusion and exclusion criteria helps with designing search strategies and deciding which studies are relevant to your research question. Possible criteria to consider include
- Time frame: Historical perspective? Published within 5 years?
- Geography: City? Country? Region?
- Population: Age? Chemicals of interest? Gender? Species? Socioeconomic status?
- Setting/Environment: Urban or rural? Experimental conditions? Climate?
- Source type: Articles? Books? Conference proceedings? Dissertations or theses? Government reports?
- Study design: Qualitative or quantitative? A specific methodology? Experimental or theoretical?
Tip: Choose your criteria carefully to avoid bias. For example, if you exclude non-English language articles, you may be ignoring relevant studies.
The following 6-minute video explains the relationship between inclusion and exclusion criteria and database searches.