Differences Between Nursing Studies Posted as Preprints on medRxiv or SSRN and Published in Peer‐Reviewed Journals

ABSTRACT Aim To analyze differences in titles, authorship, abstracts, texts, tables, figures, and references of first nursing studies posted as preprints on medRxiv's nursing subsection and the Social Science Research Network's (SSRN) Nursing Network. Background Previous studies indicated high similarity between preprints and published papers, but no such studies were done in nursing. Methods This is a cross‐sectional study in which we examined all preprints posted on medRxiv nursing subsection since its inception till February 2021, and the equivalent number of preprints first posted on the SSRN Nursing Network. Differences between changes of manuscripts belonging to the two servers were analyzed with a series of χ 2 tests and Mann–Whitney U tests. The study adheres to the Strengthening of the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines. Results While all 51 preprint–journal pairs analyzed exhibited some changes, the majority of changes were stylistic or involved the addition of information in the methods or results sections. Only 2% of studies had significant changes in their primary conclusions. We found a similar frequency of changes between the two servers. Discussion Our study has shown that the first nursing preprints posted on medRxiv and SSRN showed very high similarity with their peer‐reviewed publications. Conclusions Nursing preprints are still very rare, but current evidence indicates their quality is on par with their peer‐reviewed counterparts. Implications for Nursing and/or Health Policy Funders, universities, hospitals, research organizations, and nursing journals should actively promote the use of preprints for the rapid dissemination of nursing research findings. Additionally, they should incorporate preprints into their educational and hiring processes. Nurses and nursing researchers should follow nursing preprints to stay up to date with nursing research.