The PRISMA 2020 checklist is the reporting standard for a systematic review: 27 numbered items, with sub-items taking the full list to 42, covering everything from the title through the methods and results to funding and data availability. Journals ask for the completed checklist at submission, with the page where each item is reported. This tool tracks all 42 rows with a live progress bar, saves your ticks in the browser, and exports the finished checklist as a table.
PRISMA 2020 checklist tool
Work through every PRISMA 2020 item and sub-item, tick each one off as you report it, note the page where it appears, and export the completed checklist for your submission.
Checklist progress
0 of 42
0% of the PRISMA 2020 items reported. Progress saves in this browser automatically.
Title
0 of 1Abstract
0 of 1Introduction
0 of 2Methods
0 of 17Results
0 of 11Discussion
0 of 4Other information
0 of 6Report-ready text
The manuscript reports 0 of the 42 PRISMA 2020 checklist items (0% complete). Items still to report: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10a, and 32 more.
What the checklist is, and what it is not
The PRISMA 2020 statement exists because systematic reviews were routinely published with crucial details missing: search dates nowhere to be found, screening decisions unexplained, synthesis choices unstated. The checklist fixes that by naming every piece of information a reader needs to judge and reproduce the review, grouped under the seven official sections: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Other information. It is a reporting guideline, not a quality score: a ticked box says the item is described, not that it was done well. Our guide to the PRISMA 2020 reporting guideline explained walks through what each item is really asking for and the evidence behind it.
The practical way to use the checklist is to work through it twice. First while drafting, as a writing plan: the Methods items in particular, from the eligibility criteria through the six synthesis methods sub-items (13a to 13f), tell you exactly which decisions your methods section must record. Then again before submission, as an audit: tick each item only when you can point to the page where it is reported, and enter that page number in the column journals expect. Item 16a is the one place the checklist points to a figure rather than text, and our PRISMA flow diagram generator builds that reconciled study selection figure from your record counts.
A completed checklist is also a useful early warning. If you cannot tick an item because the work it describes was never done, no amount of careful wording will fix the gap at submission; reviewers read the checklist against the manuscript line by line. Teams that discover those gaps late often hand the whole reporting job over rather than rework it piecemeal, which is exactly what our full systematic review writing service covers, from protocol through search, screening, synthesis, and a manuscript delivered with its PRISMA checklist already completed.
How it works
The item numbers, topics, section headings, and wording follow the PRISMA 2020 statement (Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71), which is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Counting every sub-item, the checklist has 42 rows across the 27 numbered items.
Everything runs in your browser. Ticks and page numbers are stored only in this browser’s local storage, so your progress is there when you return on the same device, and nothing you enter is sent to a server. The export buttons produce the completed checklist as a copyable table, a CSV file, or an Excel file, in the item, page, and completion format journals ask for.
Frequently asked questions
- How many items are in the PRISMA 2020 checklist?
- There are 27 numbered items, but several expand into sub-items: item 10 splits into 10a and 10b, item 13 on synthesis methods runs from 13a to 13f, item 16 into 16a and 16b, item 20 from 20a to 20d, item 23 from 23a to 23d, and item 24 from 24a to 24c. Counting every sub-item, a full checklist covers 42 rows, which is exactly what this tool tracks.
- Do journals require a completed PRISMA checklist at submission?
- Most journals that publish systematic reviews and meta-analyses ask for the completed checklist as a supplementary file at submission, with the page or section where each item is reported. Editors and peer reviewers use it to confirm the review is fully reported, and an incomplete or missing checklist is a common reason a manuscript is returned before review.
- What is the difference between PRISMA 2009 and PRISMA 2020?
- PRISMA 2020 replaced the 2009 statement to reflect how review methods had moved on. It added explicit items for automation tools in screening and data collection, expanded the synthesis methods reporting into six sub-items, added items on certainty of evidence assessment and on the availability of data, code, and other materials, and updated the flow diagram to separate records removed before screening. Journals now expect the 2020 version.
- Is PRISMA a quality assessment tool?
- No. PRISMA is a reporting guideline: it checks whether the review describes what was done, not whether what was done was good. A methodologically weak review can still tick every PRISMA item. Quality and risk of bias in the included studies are assessed with separate instruments, and the conduct of the review itself is appraised with tools such as AMSTAR 2.
- Does PRISMA 2020 apply to reviews without a meta-analysis?
- Yes. PRISMA 2020 applies to any systematic review, whether or not the results are pooled statistically. Items that concern meta-analysis, such as the statistical synthesis parts of items 13 and 20, are simply reported as not applicable, ideally with a brief note saying why a quantitative synthesis was not carried out.
The guides behind this tool
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