The effects of the PRISMA statement to improve the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of nursing interventions for patients with heart failure

Aims The study aims to evaluate the reporting and methodological quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on nursing interventions in the field of heart failure and investigate whether reporting and methodological quality has been improved after PRISMA statement was published. Methods Pubmed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Review, and Embase databases were searched from inception of databases to July 31, 2018. Two authors independently extracted data from October 1, 2018, to October 31, 2018. AMSTAR and PRISMA checklists were used to assessed methodological and reporting quality. Results The 50 English articles satisfied inclusion criteria and were published from 2001 to 2017. After introduction of PRISMA statement, significant improvement in reporting of the following items was found: title, search, risk of bias in individual studies, summary measures, study selection, synthesis of results, summary of evidence for PRISMA checklists, and scientific quality of included studies provided (item 7) for AMSTAR checklists. Conclusion There were higher methodological and reporting quality after publication of PRISMA. We recommend authors, readers, reviewers, and editors to become more acquainted with and to more strictly adhere to the PRISMA and AMSTAR.