PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Instrument for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. It is intended to show the research process from search to abstract review to full text selection. Those reading an article should pay attention to inclusion and exclusion criteria, and how authors determined articles for inclusion in their final research.
From the PRISMA website: "PRISMA is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PRISMA focuses on the reporting of reviews evaluating randomized trials, but can also be used as a basis for reporting systematic reviews of other types of research, particularly evaluations of interventions."
PRISMA Flow Diagram (PDF and downloadable Word doc)
