Abstract
BACKGROUND: Caring behaviors among nurses have positive and negative impacts on patient care quality and the essence of nursing leadership paradigms. Most studies on caring behavior among nurses in Ethiopia have reported inconsistent findings and are regionally dispersed. It is believed that combining regional evidence to obtain nationally representative information could help program implementers. Therefore, the objective of this review was to estimate the pooled prevalence of caring behaviors and associated factors among nurses working in Ethiopia. METHODS: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EMBASE, Science Direct and African Journals Online were used to search for relevant studies. Additionally, studies were identified through manual reference searches. Data extraction was performed using Microsoft Excel, and analysis was conducted using STATA software V. 18. Funnel plots, Egger's test, and meta-regression were employed to assess publication bias. Heterogeneity (I²) and the overall estimate were calculated. Subgroup analysis was conducted based on study region and publication year. The pooled odds ratio was calculated for the main factors associated with caregiving behavior. RESULTS: A total of 7 studies were included that involved 2,206 nursing professionals. According to the random effects model, the pooled prevalence of good care behavior was 63% (95% CI: 55%, 72%) among nurses. According to the subgroup analysis, the highest prevalence was observed in the Oromia region (80.3%), and studies with a sample size of 300 had a higher prevalence of 52% caring behavior. Higher professional satisfaction (AOR = 1.84; 95% CI 1.41, 2.27), higher job satisfaction (AOR = 3.04; 95% CI 1.13, 4.94), a low workload (OR = 3.14; 95% CI 2.04, 4.25) and good relationships with coworkers (AOR = 4.72; 95% CI 1.57, 7.87) were factors associated with caring behaviors among nurses working in Ethiopia. CONCLUSIONS: Caring behavior among nurses is moderately good, with professional satisfaction, job satisfaction, low workload, and good relationships with workers that affect the caring behaviors among nurses working in Ethiopia. Strategies must be designed to improve satisfaction packages to improve caring behavior among nurses and ultimately improve the quality of nursing care. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The PROSPERO registration number is CRD42024570781.