PRISMA Flow Diagram Generator

Collect the final counts from your search log and screening records, then enter them into identification, screening, eligibility, and included fields. Check that each transition reconciles, review the live PRISMA 2020 preview, and download SVG or PNG for your manuscript. Keep exclusion reasons in the review records even when the diagram shows only totals.

A PRISMA flow diagram makes the study-selection process auditable. It shows how many records were identified, removed, screened, retrieved, assessed, excluded, and included. Readers, supervisors, editors, and reviewers use it to understand whether the systematic review followed a transparent path from the original search to the final evidence set.

For a systematic review, use a purpose-built PRISMA 2020 generator rather than a generic flowchart app. The important features are exact reporting terminology, fixed stage order, count validation, support for the correct review template, and publication-ready vector export. A general diagram editor is useful only when substantial custom annotation is required.

Yes. The official PRISMA site provides four 2020 templates covering new or updated systematic reviews and searches using databases and registers alone or additional methods. This online generator applies the common new-review structure automatically. Confirm the final layout against the official template that matches your review design and search sources.

This version supports the common PRISMA 2020 structure for a new review using databases and registers. It can report study selection for a meta-analysis that follows that structure. A scoping review, an updated review, or a search using websites, citation searching, and grey literature may need PRISMA-ScR or another official template listed above.

A record is a database or register entry, a report is a document that describes a study, and a study is the underlying investigation. One study may have several reports, so the number of included reports can exceed the number of included studies. Keeping these units separate prevents misleading totals in the PRISMA diagram.

Common causes include counting duplicates twice, mixing records with reports, using an intermediate screening total, omitting reports that could not be retrieved, or failing to reconcile full-text exclusions with included reports. Follow each validation message back to the search log or screening export and correct the source count rather than forcing the diagram to balance.

Yes. SVG preserves vector text, boxes, and arrows for scaling or later editing, while PNG works well in Word, slide decks, and many submission systems. The downloads have no watermark. Before submission, confirm the journal’s preferred format, dimensions, resolution, and whether it requests the flow diagram as a separate figure file.