A rapid review exists because a decision is being made in six weeks and a full systematic review takes a year. It is a legitimate form with an uncomfortable feature: there is no single agreed specification, so two rapid reviews can differ enormously in what was actually done. That makes declaring your shortcuts the central obligation rather than a footnote. This page is about which corners are usually cut, which should not be, and how to report the result honestly.
The shortcuts people take
Fewer databases, a date or language limit, single screening with a sample checked by a second person, extraction by one reviewer with verification of key fields, and narrative synthesis rather than pooling. Each of those saves real time and each costs something specific, which is why the report has to list which were taken rather than describing the work as rapid and leaving the reader to guess.
The parts that should survive
A written question and inclusion criteria settled before searching, a search you can reproduce, and counts at every stage. Those three are what make it a review rather than a summary, and none of them is where the time goes. The hours are in screening and full-text reading, which is exactly what the funnel worksheet on this site costs out from your own record count before you commit to a timetable.
What to tell the reader
State plainly what was shortened and what the likely effect is: a single screener risks missing studies, a language limit risks a geographic skew, a date cut-off risks missing the older foundational work. A rapid review that lists its own limitations in one honest paragraph is far more usable to a decision-maker than one that reads like a full review and is not.
Questions people ask about rapid review
How long does a rapid review take?
Typically weeks rather than months, and the honest driver is how many records the search returns rather than how fast anybody reads. Work out the screening hours from your own numbers before promising a date.
Is a rapid review less credible?
Only if it hides what it did. A rapid review that states its shortcuts and their likely effect is a useful document; one that reads like a full systematic review and was not is the problem.
Can one person do a rapid review?
Frequently one does, with a second person checking a sample of screening decisions. Reporting the agreement on that sample is the cheapest way to show the single screening did not go badly wrong.