The Evidence Levels of Iranian Nursing Scientific Publications Indexed in Scopus, 2011-2015

Investigation on the level of evidence-based scientific productions is an evaluation of the quality of the evidence-based studies. The current study aimed at investigating the levels of evidence-based nursing scientific productions in Iran, indexed in Scopus from 2011 to 2015.
The current descriptive study had a scientometric approach. All Iranian scientific nursing productions indexed in Scopus from 2011to 2015 were reviewed. Among 1360 articles retrieved from the Scopus database in the years under study, 1193 articles were evidence-based, and the level of their evidence was determined by the table of evidence levels suggested by American Association of Critical-Care Nursing.
Based on the findings of the study, at the evidence level A, the articles increased from 0.5% to 5% during the studied years. At level B, the rate of articles increased from 16% to 27%. At level C, the number of articles was fixed; and the number of articles dropped at the level E.
According to the increased number of articles at the mentioned evidence levels, the evidence-based tendency is growing in nursing studies, although not significant; it seems that nursing studies are moving in line with evidence-based nursing.