Objective To access the current study status and the existing problems of studies on National Essential Medicines System (NEMS) in China based on systematic review methods, and provide the evidence-based evidence and references to the studies of this field. Methods The following databases such as PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 3, March 2014), CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP and CBM were electronically searched to collect studies related to the policy analysis, implementation background, implementation strategies, implementation situation, implementation problem and implementation effects about NEMS in China. The retrieval time was from inception to December 2013. Two reviewers independently screened literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data, and finally conducted analysis on study types, study time, source journals, authors' units, study themes, etc. of the included studies. Results A total of 1 607 articles were finally included, encompassing 56.38% qualitative studies and 43.62% quantitative studies. The number of published studies per year, the number of quantitative studies as well as the number of financiallysupported studies out of the total studies published per year had increased by year since 2009. The study topics focused on every parts during the implementation of NEMS in different proportions. The proportion of the national studies in the quantitative studies was lower than that of others. The regional distribution involved in the quantitative studies was unbalanced, and the ratio of which located on the East, the Central and the West of China was 2 to 1 to 1. Conclusion The implementation of NEMS and related studies are mutually promoted. More studies are needed to be carried out on remote areas as well as West China. Although the studies related to these areas tend to be standardized and evidence-based, but more in-depth studies should be well advanced. Most of the topics of the studies are widely covered, and the topics of further studies should be enforced in the detail of implementation links. Most of the studies focus on primary medical institutions, and more studies are also needed for supporting and expanding the implementation of NEMS in second and three degree medical institutions.

Citation： LINTeng-fei, HUMing, MIYuan. National Essential Medicines System in China: A Status-quo Analysis. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2014, 14(5): 575-583. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.20140096 Copy