Background: Forwards citation searching is a valuable method for finding relevant studies in reviews where concepts are not clearly defined. Scopus and Web of Science can both be used for forwards citation searching but there is little evidence comparing the resources for this purpose.
Method: 104 source records relevant to a scoping review of implementation and dissemination strategies in dementia care were checked for inclusion on Web of Science and Scopus. The number of citing references was recorded. Where citing references appeared unique to one of the resources, they were checked for inclusion on the other resource to assess the performance of citation links.
Results: 1397 citing references were returned by Scopus and 1010 were returned by Web of Science. For the unique citing references returned by Web of Science (n = 52), 36 were subsequently found to be on Scopus but had failed to be picked up as citing a source record. Of the unique citing references returned by Scopus (n = 355), 83 were found to be on Web of Science but had failed to be picked up as citing a source record. 26 additional relevant records were identified for the review by forwards citation searching. All were found on Scopus; six would have been missed by searching Web of Science alone.
Conclusion: Citation searching using Scopus alone would have found all additional relevant studies for the review. Both Scopus and Web of Science failed to return all citing references from the source records, even where they were present on the database, indicating poor links between citations.
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