Study selection
Articles were included if (1) the topic was the prenatal counseling consultation for extreme prematurity at the limit of viability, and (2) the perspective was either that of parents or physicians. Articles were excluded if (1) they were official policy statements, clinical reports or guidelines, (2) they were focused on the education or training of physicians, or (3) they were focused only on the parental decision-making process instead of the prenatal counseling consultation.
Titles and abstracts of 1876 articles were screened by two reviewers (LDP, EJTV) that selected the articles independently for assessment against the inclusion criteria. The two researchers screened 143 articles full text and excluded 79 of them for further analysis. A screening of the reference lists of the 64 included articles yielded 6 more relevant articles. Thus, 70 articles were included, of which 2 were systematic reviews. In the 2 systematic reviews, 23 articles were included. These 23 articles were excluded from this scoping review. Ultimately, 47 articles were included in this review. Disagreements that arose between the reviewers at each stage of the selection process were resolved through discussion until agreement was reached. The results of the search and the study inclusion process were reported in full and presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR) diagram.13 A flow diagram of the screening process can be found in Figure 1.