Background Depression is one of the most common mental disorders, profoundly impacting an individual's performance and quality of life. Due to their unique working conditions, nursing is counted among the occupational groups at high risk for developing depression. Because of the shortage of nursing resources in China, Chinese nurses suffer from heavy daily workloads more than those in many other countries. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the overall prevalence of depressive symptoms and analyse the potential risk factors of depressive symptoms in Chinese nurses. Methods A systematic literature search in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, the Chinese BioMedical Literature Database (CBM), the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and the Weipu and Wanfang databases up to Dec 31st, 2019 was performed regarding the prevalence of depressive symptoms in Chinese nurses. Eligibility assessment and data extraction were performed independently by 2 researchers, and meta-analysis was used to synthesize the data. Heterogeneity was evaluated using Cochran's Q test and quantified using the I 2 statistic. To explore the potential source of heterogeneity, subgroup analyses were also performed. In addition, both funnel plot and Egger's tests were adopted to assess publication bias. Results A total of 102 studies published from 1996 to 2019 covering 22 provinces were included for further analysis. The total number of participants was 52,592, with a range of 46 to 7205 per study. The overall prevalence of depressive symptoms in Chinese nurses was 43.83% (95% CI: 40.26%-47.42%), and 31.12% (95%CI: 27.30%-35.07%) were classified as mild degrees of depressive symptoms. The prevalence of depressive symptoms may be significantly affected by region, province or municipality and department marital status. Moreover, an increasing trend in the prevalence of depressive symptoms was observed in recent years.

Toxoplasma gondii transmitted from blood donors to receiving patients has become a concern as numerous articles about the epidemiology of T. gondii infection in blood donors from different provinces have been published in China. This study aimed to evaluate the seroprevalence of T. gondii infection in Chinese blood donors using a meta-analysis. A total of 40 eligible studies, published from 1986 to 2017 and covering 18 provinces and municipalities were included. Among a total of 49,784 Chinese blood donors, the overall IgG seroprevalence of T. gondii infection was 6.26% (95% CI: 4.62%–8.13%). The highest prevalence was in the Northeast of China and the lowest in Central China. The infection rate increased slowly over the years, but not significantly. A statistically significant correlation was found between the seroprevalence of T. gondii infection and the detection method and educational level (p < 0.01). There was no relationship between age, gender, occupation and blood type and seroprevalence of T. gondii (p > 0.05). The prevalence of antibodies to T. gondii in Chinese blood donors was lower than in other countries, but the risk of transfusion-transmitted toxoplasmosis still exits. More concise methods are still needed to evaluate the possibility of transfusion-transmitted toxoplasmosis from blood donors.