  Theoretical issues: With the explosive growth in the research literature
production, the need for new approaches to structure knowledge emerged. Method:
Synthetic content analysis was used in our meta-study. Results and discussion:
Our meta-study showed that content analysis is frequently used in nursing
research in a very wide spectrum of applications. The trend of its use is
positive and it is used globally in a variety of research settings. The
synthetic content analysis used in our study showed to be a very helpful tool
in performing knowledge synthesis, replacing many of the routine activities of
conventional synthesis with automated activities this making such studies more
economically viable and easier to perform.
