Quality assessment of systematic reviews with meta-analysis in undergraduate nursing education

Abstract

Background: Little attention has been given to the methodological quality of meta-analyses in nursing education. This warrants further improvements in meta-analyses in nursing education.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the methodological quality of meta-analysis in the field of undergraduate nursing education.

Design: This was a methodological study to review the methodological quality of systematic reviews (SRs) with meta-analysis.

Methods: Exhaustive literature searches were performed using five comprehensive databases. Between 1994 and 2022, 11,827 studies were identified, and 41 full-text articles met the inclusion criteria. Two researchers extracted data using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR)-2. The Chi-square test was conducted to make comparisons before and after 2017, the year AMSTAR-2 was released.

Results: A comprehensive literature retrieval strategy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, literature selection, and data extraction were observed in nursing education more than in other disciplines. Improvements to be made include pre-specifying the protocol, providing a list of excluded studies with their exclusion reasons, reporting the source of funding for the included studies, assessing and discussing the potential impact of risk of bias, as well as investigating and discussing publication bias and its impact.

Conclusions: The number of SRs with meta-analyses in nursing education is increasing. This warrants efforts to improve the quality of research. In addition, guidelines for reporting SRs in the field of nursing education should be constantly updated.

Keywords: AMSTAR-2; Meta-analysis; Methodological quality; Nursing education; Systematic reviews.