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.