Reconsidering Google Scholar Regarding PRISMA Guidelines

Well-cited articles identify Google Scholar as a sufficiently lacking database to evaluate it as supplementary regarding the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA. Subsequent author systematic review searches have accepted this relegation of Google Scholar to supplementary status without examination. This study questions this acceptance by (1) revealing the type of difficulties with Google Scholar identified in these well-cited publications compared with PRISMA guidelines, and (2) examining several PRISMA scoping review primary database searches performed by this author since 2023 for the adequacy of Google Scholar results compared with them. The results reveal that the reasons for considering Google Scholar a supplementary database regarding PRISMA status are not convincing, as they are unrelated to PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews. Additionally, Google Scholar was the source of the most relevant included studies for the majority of this author’s post-2023 scoping reviews. These results demonstrate that the accepted advice to authors that Google Scholar should be a supplementary database is unsupported. Regarding PRISMA guidelines, based on the results of this original research, there should be immediate reconsideration of Google Scholar's status for acceptance as a primary database.