Study characteristics
A total of 829 articles were identified by searching the five databases. Of these, 790 were excluded because they were ineligible and duplicated. The total number was reduced to 39 articles. Screening of full-text papers excluded an additional 34 articles. A total of five articles were eligible for inclusion the review. Reference list of each included articles was screened to check if any relevant review has been omitted. Five additional articles were included. As a result, ten articles were included for quality appraisal and analysis (Figure 1).
Of the ten included articles, five were systematic reviews,19,28-31 four were narrative reviews,8,32-34, and the one remaining was a scoping review.35 Regarding the geographical focus of included reviews, three reviews were focused on developing countries,28,31,33 one concentrated on the global perspective, 8 while the other reviews did not specify the regions.8,19,29,30,32,34,35
Most reviews focused on the policymakers and healthcare system perspectives, 19,28,35 two reviews were focused on nurses,31,32 and, healthcare professionals in general,29,30 while one review was focused on clinicians.32 With regards to the timing of publication, most reviews were published in the last ten years.8,19,28,30-33,35,36 Two reviews were published before 2010.29,34
With regards to the number of articles included within each review article, six articles specified the number of studies they included.19,28-31,35 Two articles included more than one hundred studies,19,30 one review included 62 studies 28 and the other 29,31,35included less than fifty studies; ranged between 16 and 38 studies. The main findings of the included articles are illustrated in Table 2.