Endorsement of the PRISMA statement and the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in nursing journals: a cross-sectional study

Article type
Year
Authors
Tam W1, Lo K2, Tam W1
1National University of Singapore, Singapore
2The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract
Background: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Several studies have examined the endorsement and adherence of PRISMA statement in different medical specialties, but none has been conducted in nursing journals.

Objectives: The objectives of this study are twofold:
1. to investigate the number of nursing journals that have endorsed or recommended the use of the PRISMA statement for reporting systematic reviews, and
2. to examine adherence to the statement in published systematic reviews in nursing journals.

Methods: Nursing journals listed in an ISI journal citation report were divided into two groups by the endorsement of PRISMA statement in their 'Instruction for Authors'. We searched for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, published in 2014, from three databases: 37 systematic reviews and meta-analyses were randomly selected in each group. The adherence to each item in the PRISMA statement was examined and summarized using descriptive statistics. The quality of the systematic reviews was measured by AMSTAR (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews). The differences between the two groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: Thirty (28.0%) out of 107 nursing journals recommended or required authors to follow the PRISMA statement when they submit systematic reviews or meta-analyses. The median adherence to the 27 items of the PRISMA statement for reviews published in journals with and without PRISMA endorsement was 64.9% (interquartile range (IQR) 17.6% to 92.3%) and 73.0% (IQR 59.5% to 94.6%), respectively. No significant difference was observed in any of the items between the two groups.

Conclusions: The adherence of systematic reviews in nursing journals to PRISMA is comparatively lower than those in other specialty journals. Nonetheless, the adherence level of nursing journals to PRISMA statement does not vary significantly whether the journals endorse/recommend the guideline, or not.