Systematic Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Nov 6, 2019; 7(21): 3505-3516
Published online Nov 6, 2019. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v7.i21.3505
How about the reporting quality of case reports in nursing field?
Ke-Lu Yang, Cun-Cun Lu, Yue Sun, Yi-Tong Cai, Bo Wang, Yi Shang, Jin-Hui Tian
Ke-Lu Yang, Yue Sun, Yi-Tong Cai, Jin-Hui Tian, Evidence-Based Nursing Center, School of Nursing, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Cun-Cun Lu, Jin-Hui Tian, Evidence-Based Medicine Center, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Bo Wang, Gansu Province Hospital Rehabilitation Center, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Yi Shang, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Author contributions: Tian JH and Yang KL contributed to the conceptualization and design; Lu CC and Yang KL completed the data collection; Sun Y and Cai YT provided statistical support; Wang B, Shang Y, and Yang KL provided the analysis; Tian JH, Lu CC, and Yang KL contributed to the manuscript preparation.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jin-Hui Tian, PhD, Full Professor, Evidence-Based Nursing Center, School of Nursing, Lanzhou University, No. 28 Yanxi Road, Chengguan District, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China. tianjh@lzu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-931-8556807
Received: May 17, 2019
Peer-review started: May 23, 2019
First decision: August 1, 2019
Revised: August 27, 2019
Accepted: September 9, 2019
Article in press: September 9, 2019
Published online: November 6, 2019
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

As a significantly important part of clinical practice, the professional nursing process can be advanced in many ways. Although case reports are regarded as lower grade in the hierarchy of evidence, they are still important in the nursing field. However, the evidence on reporting characteristics of case reports in nursing field is deficient.

Research motivation

Information provided in the higher quality case reports could assist nurses with the opportunity to deal with intractable cases or rare diseases. Clinical nursing practice must continue to accumulate knowledge of new methods and experience in the context of state-of-the-art nursing care to improve the well-being of patients.

Research objectives

The aim of this study was to identify factors influencing the quality of case reports and to explore the applicability of the CARE guidelines to nursing case reports by assessing the reporting quality of case reports published in nursing science citation indexed journals according to the CARE guidelines.

Research methods

Twenty-one sub-items on the CARE checklist were recorded as “YES”, “PARTLY”, or “NO” according to information reported by the included studies. The responses were assigned corresponding scores of 1, 0.5, and 0, respectively. The overall scores were the sum of the 21 sub-items and were defined as “high” (more than 15), “medium” (10.5 to 14.5), and “low” (less than 10). The means, standard deviations, and odds ratios and the associated 95% confidence intervals were determined using Stata 12.0 software.

Research results

The overall quality of nursing case reports is not high. Of the 21 items, only five items (11d, 9, 8c, 6, 5a) were reported in more than 90% of the included case reports, and three items (5c, 8d, 10) were reported less than 10%.

Research conclusions

The reporting quality of case reports in the nursing field apparently has not improved since the publication of the CARE guidelines.

Research perspectives

There are some differences between nursing and medicine. Therefore, more research on the extended version of the CARE guidelines suited for the nursing field can be conducted in the future.