The prevalence of stroke among adults in Ethiopia from 2012 to 2022: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Introduction: Stroke is one of the most common causes of death and acquired disability worldwide. The burden of death and disability-adjusted life-years lost (DALYs) in lower-and-middle income countries (LMIC), were 86% and 89%, respectively. Ethiopia, one of SSA countries, is being affected by stroke and its consequence. The conception and development of this systematic review and meta-analysis protocol primarily based on the gap we noted from the previous systematic review and meta-analysis. Thus, this review will fill knowledge gap by identifying and analyzing studies that used sound method in determiningthe last ten years stroke prevalence in Ethiopia. Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis will follow Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guideline. Both published articles and gray literature will be gathered from online databases. Cross-sectional, case control, and cohort studies will be included as long as these studies report the magnitude of the problem under study. Both community and facility-based studies conducted in Ethiopia will be included. Those studies that did not report the main outcome variable will be excluded. Joanna Bridge Institute appraisal checklist will be used to assess the quality of individual studies. Two reviewers will independently appraise the full articles of studies related to our topic of interest. I2 and p-value will be used to check for heterogeneity of the studies’ outcome. Meta-regression will be used to identify source of heterogeneity. We will assess the presence of publication bias using funnel plot.