BACKGROUND: Thus far, published systematic reviews have centered exclusively on evidence-based practice (EBP) assessment instruments for registered nurses and healthcare professionals. However, there remains a notable absence of comprehensive reviews focusing specifically on nursing students. AIMS: To systematically evaluate the psychometric properties of instruments for assessing EBP ability in nursing students. METHODS: This systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We systematically searched five databases (CNKI, PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CINAHL Complete) for studies on EBP ability assessment instruments for nursing students published up to April 1, 2025. The methodological quality and psychometric properties of the included instruments were evaluated using COSMIN standards, and final recommendations were formulated. RESULTS: The content validity of the articles reviewed is questionable. The structural validity of most studies was very good, with most authors reporting measures of internal consistency. A few studies addressed reliability, criterion validity, measurement error, and hypothesis testing; however, the methodological quality of these assessments raised concerns. Crucially, psychometric properties such as cross‑cultural validity and responsiveness were not evaluated. CONCLUSION: The quality of instrumental psychometric properties for assessing the EBP ability of nursing students needs to be improved. the S-EBPQ and EBP-COQ appear to be the most promising instruments, but the limitations of their content validity and structural validity still need to be considered. In the future, nursing educators should further develop/validate the EBP ability assessment instrument for nursing students accordance with the COSMIN guidelines and combined with the specific situation of nursing students.
Li et al. (Wed,) studied this question.