Heeding the voices of nurses: a systematic review and meta-analysis of organizational silence levels among clinical nurses

Background Systematic integration of nursing staff perspectives constitutes a critical determinant of organizational efficacy. However, more and more studies showed that organizational silence occurred among nurses frequently. We aimed to analyze the pooled level of organizational silence in nursing field so as to provide the evidence for the nursing management. Methods The data were collected following predefined inclusion criteria. Two researchers independently screened studies, extracted data and assessed the quality of included studies. Stata 15.1 was used to examine the data. Results There were 34 studies in total, involving 13,394 nurses from China, Turkey, and Korea. Nurses had a moderate level of organizational silence in our study, with an average mean score of 2.69 (95% CI: 2.57-2.81). Significant heterogeneity in the prevalence estimates of the included studies was detected (I2 = 99.00%, P < 0.001). Regression analysis did not reveal the source of heterogeneity. Subgroup analysis revealed that only the oncology department was a source of heterogeneity. Conclusions Our findings revealed a moderate level of organizational silence among nursing professionals, offering critical insights into their unmet communicative needs within healthcare institutions. This empirical evidence underscores the necessity to develop targeted intervention strategies aimed at counteracting the detrimental impacts of organizational silence on both clinical safety outcomes and long-term institutional sustainability.