PICO Portal leverages its deduplication technology to identify duplicates from different sources and merge them. By default, Merge Duplicates (in the Preferences screen) is enabled to ensure you get the most accurate results.
However, if you want to manually view the duplicates and merge them, then you can disable the Merge Duplicates option, upload the citations, and then navigate to the Screening > Duplicates screen. The Duplicates screen displays duplicate citations and allows you to merge them as required.
The Duplicates screen will display duplicates in the following scenarios:
- When the Merge Duplicates feature is disabled, PICO Portal will display all of the duplicates on the screen.
- When the Merge Duplicates feature is enabled, the PICO Portal system will find duplicates during upload. If the duplicate confidence of the system is high, PICO Portal merges the duplicates. However, if the duplicate confidence is low, PICO Portal marks it as a pending duplicate and displays the record on the screen.
Depending on the role assigned and permissions granted, you will be able to see the pending Duplicates that need to be reviewed on the project dashboard under Abstract Screening. Click on this to view the duplicate articles, or navigate to Screening > Duplicates.
Duplicate citations appear as shown below:
Here you can compare the duplicate citations and choose to either merge them by clicking on the Duplicate button, or keep them as separate articles. PICO Portal marks one citation as the primary article and the other as the secondary citation. You may encounter additional citations that have been identified as potential duplicates in the same set, which will appear as additional numbered tabs. These will need to be reviewed in the same way as described previously.
You are also able to switch the primary citation as needed. For example, if the duplicate has more information than the primary article, such as a more complete abstract, you can assign it as the new primary article by clicking on Make Primary.
When you merge duplicate citations, the primary citation proceeds for further screening.
If an article is not a duplicate, you can mark it as not a duplicate by clicking on the Not a duplicate button. This marks the secondary citation as not a duplicate of the primary citation and makes it available for review. If you encounter additional citations in the same set, and they are also not duplicates of the primary citation, you can review them in the same way as described previously.
