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Abstract
Objective Systematic reviews (SRs) often poorly report key information, thereby diminishing their usefulness. Previous studies evaluated published SRs and determined that they failed to meet explicit criteria or characteristics. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was recommended as a reporting guideline for SR and meta-analysis (MA), but previous studies showed that adherence to the statement was not high for SRs published in different medical fields. Thus, the aims of this study are twofold: (1) to investigate the number of nursing journals that have required or recommended the use of the PRISMA statement for reporting SR, and (2) to examine the adherence of SRs and/or meta-analyses to the PRISMA statement published in nursing journals.
Design A cross-sectional study.
Methods Nursing journals listed in the ISI journal citation report were divided into 2 groups based on the recommendation of PRISMA statement in their ‘Instruction for Authors’. SRs and meta-analyses published in 2014 were searched in 3 databases. 37 SRs and meta-analyses were randomly selected in each group. The adherence of each item to the PRISMA was examined and summarised using descriptive statistics. The quality of the SRs was assessed by Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews. The differences between the 2 groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test.
Results Out of 107 nursing journals, 30 (28.0%) recommended or required authors to follow the PRISMA statement when they submit SRs or meta-analyses. The median rates of adherence to the PRISMA statement for reviews published in journals with and without PRISMA endorsement were 64.9% (IQR: 17.6–92.3%) and 73.0% (IQR: 59.5–94.6%), respectively. No significant difference was observed in any of the items between the 2 groups.
Conclusions The median adherence of SRs and meta-analyses in nursing journals to PRISMA is low at 64.9% and 73.0%, respectively. Nonetheless, the adherence level of nursing journals to the PRISMA statement does not significantly vary whether they endorse or recommend such a guideline.
- STATISTICS & RESEARCH METHODS
- Systematic Review and meta-analyses
- PRISMA
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Footnotes
Contributors WWST and KKHL designed the study and conducted the search, KKHL and PK screened and selected the articles, WWST, KKHL and PK evaluated the articles, WWST conducted the analysis and WWST, KKHL and PK drafted the manuscript.
Funding The project was partly supported by the University Start-up Grant (NUHSRO/2014/101/SU/01) of the first author.
Disclaimer The funding body did not play any role in the design of the study and collection, analysis and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement The data from this study were extracted from published articles in peer-reviewed journals. The list of the articles was uploaded as online supplementary file.