A nursing literature review is judged by what it means for patient care. This guide is for nursing students with a draft review in a master's thesis or dissertation, or a review that is the whole thesis. Nursing readers judge a review by evidence-based practice: how the studies were found, how strong they are, and what they mean for care. This page sets out the choice between review types, how to document a search, how the evidence hierarchy and appraisal tools fit together, where clinical guidelines belong, and what assessors in nursing check, with guidance from universities in Sweden, Canada, and India quoted.
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In nursing, a literature review is judged by what it would mean for patients and practice. The reader wants to know what the evidence says, how strong it is, and how far it applies to the setting you have in mind. That is why the search method, the design of each study, and the appraisal get so much attention.
The review can also be the whole thesis. At Karlstad University in Sweden, the master's degree project in nursing is described this way: “The degree project is a research project in nursing and can be in the form of a systematic literature review or an empirical study.” In a thesis with its own data, the review sets up the question; in a review thesis, the review is the method and the results. In US programs, where the review supports a practice change in a capstone or DNP project, see the nursing capstone and DNP project pages. This page belongs to thesis chapter feedback.
A hypothetical example of a commentYour search section reports 412 records after duplicates were removed, but your flow diagram starts screening at 389. Where did the other 23 records go?
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Get a free previewNarrative, integrative, scoping, and systematic reviews owe the reader different things, and a label that doesn't match the method draws questions. Thompson Rivers University's open textbook on evidence-based nursing research describes systematic reviews as using a structured, reproducible methodology, and adds: “Tools such as the Cochrane Handbook and reporting frameworks like PRISMA support their development.” For scoping reviews, the same chapter notes that “the PRISMA-ScR extension provides a tailored checklist and flow diagram to report mapping of evidence rather than critical appraisal.”
| Review type | What it sets out to do | What a reader expects to find |
|---|---|---|
| Narrative | Give background and context for a question | A clear scope, and a plain statement that the selection was not systematic |
| Integrative | Combine experimental, non-experimental, and theoretical sources | A method for comparing different kinds of evidence, and appraisal of each |
| Scoping | Map how much research exists on a topic and of what kind | A protocol, a documented search, and a charting table; appraisal is optional |
| Systematic | Answer a focused question with all eligible studies | A protocol, a reproducible search, a PRISMA flow, appraisal of every included study, and a synthesis |
Programs set their own rules. The MSN thesis guidelines of UBC's School of Nursing in Vancouver accept a rigorous systematic review and synthesis of the literature on a question relevant to nursing or health care, in the form of a rapid evidence assessment, and add: “Please note that other forms of literature review such as an integrative review or scoping review are generally appropriate only for a Scholarly Practice Advancement Research Project (SPAR), which has a narrower scope and lower credit value.” At doctoral level, the University of Victoria's School of Nursing notes: “In a traditional form dissertation, a systematic review may replace the literature review section.” The same guidelines make this depend on the supervisor and supervisory committee agreeing to support the review. If your draft calls itself a scoping or systematic review, check that your program accepts that type for your degree.
A focused nursing question can be broken into PICO elements: population, intervention or exposure, comparison, and outcome. Qualitative questions use variants such as PICo (population, phenomenon of interest, context). Each element becomes a block of search terms: subject headings (CINAHL Subject Headings in CINAHL, MeSH in PubMed/MEDLINE) combined with text-word synonyms, joined with OR inside a block and AND between blocks.
UVic's School of Nursing lists the components of a systematic review, beginning with “development of a clear, focused research question (PICO or PiCo), preparation of a detailed protocol (which includes a preliminary review of the literature and inclusion/exclusion criteria), conducting a comprehensive, replicable and transparent search of the literature, screening and critically appraising the literature”. A narrative review can borrow part of this. The Lithuanian University of Health Sciences' recommendations for master's theses in medicine put the habit in one line: “It is essential to keep accurate records of the literature search strategy used.” The search section of a nursing review reports:
For questions about the effect of an intervention, nursing reviews rank evidence by design: systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials at the top, then single trials, then cohort and case-control studies, then case series and expert opinion. That ranking answers questions about effects. For questions about experience or meaning, qualitative studies are the matching design, and JBI keeps separate levels of evidence for them. Ranking a qualitative study as weak evidence on a question about patients' experience applies the wrong scale.
Placing a study in the hierarchy is a different step from appraising it. Appraisal asks whether this particular study was done well: randomization and allocation concealment, blinding, attrition, confounding in observational designs, credibility and reflexivity in qualitative work. CASP and JBI publish checklists by study design, such as randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, and qualitative studies. Use the checklist that matches each study's design and report the result, in a table or a short summary per study.
The same Lithuanian recommendations note that a general checklist may need adapting: “After assessing the aspects of the issue under consideration (PICOS, PEO, PIO), it may be necessary to modify the proposed general checklists.” In a thesis, the reader looks at what you did with the result. A study with serious weaknesses that still carries a central claim in your synthesis needs a sentence explaining why.
A clinical practice guideline is a set of recommendations based on a review of evidence, with expert consensus where evidence is thin. It belongs in a nursing review as a different kind of source from the studies. Cite the guideline for what it recommends and for the strength it gives each recommendation; cite the primary studies or systematic reviews for the evidence itself. Check the date and whether a newer version exists, and name the country or organization that issued it, since recommendations differ between health systems.
Systematic reviews raise a related problem: double counting. If a review you cite includes three trials that you also describe separately, those trials are not three more pieces of support. Say which primary studies a cited review already contains.
A synthesis organized by finding keeps these levels apart. The synopsis guidelines for the M.Sc. Nursing at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University in Lucknow state: “It should be synthesis and critical evaluation of reviewed literature under particular sub-head rather than annotated bibliography or chronological summary of each reviewed research paper.”
UBC's MSN thesis guidelines describe what the literature review should do. Among other things, it “Is selective, including influential references.” and “Offers a critique of the state of knowledge in the field.” In a nursing review, that critique runs along these lines:
These fragments are made up. None of them comes from a real thesis.
For the length of the review relative to the whole thesis, see how long should a literature review be. The citation checker compares your reference list with your in-text citations.
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Esmond is an AI tool that doesn't write for you. If your course doesn't allow any AI tools, don't use Esmond for that work. If you're unsure, ask your instructor or advisor.
Esmond reads your review. It can flag, in the text you upload, what a nursing reader may question: a search described too thinly to repeat, PRISMA numbers that don't add up, strong evidence claimed from weak designs, a guideline and its own source studies counted as separate support where your text shows the guideline rests on those studies, appraisal mentioned without a tool or a result. The sample report shows the format, and how Esmond works describes the process.
Esmond reads what you upload. If the file holds the whole draft, it can set this chapter against the others; if it holds one chapter, the review stays within that chapter and may raise a point that another chapter already answers.
Esmond doesn't run your database searches, appraise the studies for you, or check your review against a protocol or your program's template. What to change stays your decision.
A stated review type, a search method someone could repeat, the design and appraisal of the studies your claims depend on, a synthesis organized by finding, and what the evidence means for practice. Your program's guidelines decide how much of the search and appraisal must be shown.
In some programs, yes. Karlstad's master's degree project in nursing may be a systematic literature review, UBC's MSN thesis guidelines accept a rigorous systematic review and synthesis in the form of a rapid evidence assessment, and UVic's School of Nursing allows a systematic review to replace the literature review section of a traditional dissertation if the supervisor and supervisory committee agree. Check what your own program accepts.
A systematic review follows a protocol, searches in a reproducible way for all eligible studies, appraises every included study, and reports a PRISMA flow. A literature review in a thesis can be narrative and selective, as long as it says so. Calling a narrative review systematic invites questions about the method.
Either can work. What a reader checks is that the checklist matches each study's design and that you report what it found. Some programs prescribe one tool, so ask your supervisor.
Look at how the search is reported (databases, dates, full strings), whether the PRISMA numbers add up, which appraisal tool is named for each design, and whether guidelines and studies are cited for different things. Those are the parts a nursing reader checks in your own draft.
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