A Critical Appraisal of the Review Study to Improve Its Reporting Quality.

Dear Editor,

The present letter is to concern the article written by Akbari et al.[1] First off, we appreciate the efforts made by the editors of Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research to help publish such an important article. However, there seem to be some points neglected by the authors. Review studies are used because of their important role in evidence-based decision making in health care,[2] so it is essential to explain and clarify a few points about this study. The first point is about the title, according to the explanation given in the materials and methods section, this study is not a narrative review and it is necessary to refer to the term “systematic review” in the title[3] The second point is about the search period. Is there a specific reason to select this interval? If there is such a reason, authors should mention it in the article. The third point is about the analysis and synthesis method. The authors have expressed that they have used the matrix approach for analysis. How has the matrix approach been used in the analysis? The expression “matrix approach” does not indicate how to analyze the results. The fourth point is about the quality appraisal of included studies. What tool is used to appraise the quality of the included studies? The fifth point is about duplicate sentences in the content of the article. There are examples of these cases about method analysis at the end of method and as well as at the beginning of the results. The sixth point is about one of the Iranian databases. The authors seem to be unaware of the Barakat Knowledge Network System (BKNS) database and they have written IRANMEDEX. BKNS database started its mission in 7 science fields in 2012. Health was the first field to be administered by the system. Through providing a comprehensive database of the articles taken from health journals and conferences, this part of the system has turned Iran into information corridor of Islamic world.[4] The seventh point is about of the aforementioned article and the controversy in its abstract. “One thousand two hundred articles were found in English and Farsi”. The current article focuses on a very useful topic, so we thank you for achieving the appropriate results. The ambiguity was not structural, but this ambiguity can reduce the quality of the study. We hope the authors will strengthen their study by writing better and increasing transparency.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

Nothing to declare.