Neonatal nursing research in low-and middle-income countries: A scoping review

Neonatal outcomes contribute over 50% to under-five child mortality globally. Given that nurses in low- and lower-middle-income countries are often primary care providers, they are ideally positioned to impact outcomes. Our scoping review aims to explore how neonatal nurses in LMICs are represented in global health research. This review was constructed using Arksey and O'Malley's five-step framework. Five databases were utilized in the search, and grey literature was included. A total of 651 articles were yielded, with 31 included in our review. We constructed themes based on the philosophical conceptualization of nursing knowledge as knowledge about nursing, knowledge for nursing, and knowledge of nursing. Representation of neonatal nursing in LMIC in global health research is extremely limited. Literature that exists primarily describes challenges in neonatal nursing or provides practice-specific knowledge for nurses to utilize. Further, research exploring knowledge of nurses that does exist has been entirely driven by Western, non-nursing perspectives.