A Scoping Review of Thai Nursing Research over the Past 3 Years

Abstract

Objective: To examine the scope of nursing research in Thailand in terms of (1) research issues; (2) impacts on the population’s health; and (3) the level of research quality
Methodology: This scoping review examined research articles written by Thai nurse researchers, either as frst authors or corresponding authors, and published between July 2018 and June 2021 in journals listed in the Thai-Journal Citation Index Centre (TCI), Tier 1, and in international journals indexed in these databases: CINAHL, PubMed, and Scopus. The Jonna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoping review protocol and its critical appraisal tools were employed to review the studies according to their methodological designs, with the exception of mixed-method studies, to which McGills’ Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was applied. Data collection tools and data collection procedure were content-validated by three experts. In addition, interrater reliability was also measured, which resulted in 83.4% agreement between two raters, with a kappa coeffcient of 0.79. The data were analysed by using descriptive statistics.
Results: In total, 839 Thai nursing research studies were scope-reviewed. The review revealed the following. First, nearly half focused on clinical research, followed by health promotion and disease prevention. Most studies corresponded to Thailand’s 20-year national strategic plan for public health, especially on excellence in promotion, prevention, and protection, and were conducted on clients with chronic illnesses. However, studies on the aging population, palliative care, innovation- and implementation research, and studies using big data, were in a limited quantity. Second, the top three areas of studies with impacts on the population’s health were health behaviours, management of symptoms and symptom clusters, and self-management. And third, more than half were of moderate quality, with only one-fourth having high quality.
Conclusion and Recommendations: Nursing research has generated knowledge benefcial to the Thai population’s health, especially for clients with chronic illnesses. Further studies are recommended for some under-studied areas, particularly concerning certain limitations in the fndings about impacts on the population’s health. In addition, research methods should be improved to enhance research quality.