Abstract Background: The only way to present nursing as a profession, in its own right, is to develop its theories. The pursuit of further clarity may enable pediatric nurses to plan for further studies and use appropriate theories in practice. This needs an inquiry to start with a review of existing literature from various research fields to clarify key knowledge and gaps. Therefore, this study aimed to review studies on nursing theories in pediatric settings. Methods: The study design was a systematic review with a qualitative synthesis approach. The inclusion criteria were articles written in English published from 2000 to 2020, focusing on developing a new theory or using previous nursing theories in pediatric settings, in PubMed, Scopus, Ovid, and EBSCO databases. The exclusion criteria were the articles written in languages other than English, settings other than pediatric, and not finding the full text. The qualitative synthesis was used to integrate the data using MAXQDA10. Results: The results of data analysis showed 24 new theories were developed by the grounded theory approach regarding parenting, nurse-family interaction, and improving nursing care. Moreover, the theories of some nursing scholars, such as Orem and Watson, were mostly used as a framework in studies on cancer (18.96%) and critically-ill children, especially adolescents (21.81%). Conclusion: This study clarified the trend of nursing theories in pediatric settings and highlighted the gaps in the literature, over the last two decades. The study provides implications for future studies regarding nursing theories in pediatric settings and, encourages nurses to strive in the journey of professionalization by utilizing and developing more nursing theories. Future studies can focus on other aspects, such as primary and tertiary prevention in different age groups or the most prevalent diseases in children. Keywords: Nursing theory, Children, Pediatrics, Pediatric nursing Introduction In the past, the nursing profession has been based on assimilation and execution of medical knowledge and theory (1). However, during the 1950s, there was a consensus among nursing scholars that the discipline needed to validate itself as a scientific discipline through the production of its own body of knowledge and theories (2). At the beginning of the twentieth century, nurses recognized the necessity of establishing nursing as a profession and began to change it from a vocation to a profession. At first, the theories from other disciplines were deemed essential in nursing. For example, nurses used psychological theories of attachment and separation for children and their families during hospitalization, as well as other theories of learning for improving health knowledge. However, they gradually found that using these borrowed theories in the nursing context had some significant limitations. For instance, they could not adequately clarify the process for individuals facing illness, or did not deal with certain ethical issues nurses might have confronted in discussing sensitive information with a patient. Therefore, nursing scholars started to develop their own specific theories. As a result of this trend, many nursing theories were developed (3). Based on the nature of the data in nursing, theories are developed by an inductive or deductive approach. The objectives of a nursing theory are to describe, predict, and explain the phenomenon under study (3). Moreover, they strive to provide the foundations for practice, generate further knowledge, and guide future nursing directions. The use of theory is essential considering it assists nurses in distinguishing what they know from what they need A Systematic Review of Nursing Theories in Pediatrics Settings Emine Geçkil 1 ID , Raheleh Sabetsarvestani 2* ID , Zahra Hadianshirazi 3 ID 1 Professor of Nursing, Department of Pediatric Nursing, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey 2 Assistant Professor of Nursing, Department of Pediatric Nursing, Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey 3 Assistant Professor, Community-Based Psychiatric Care Research Center, Department of Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran *Corresponding Author: Raheleh Sabetsarvestani, Email: rahelehsabet88@gmail.com Received: June 15, 2021, Accepted: October 26, 2021, ePublished: September 20, 2022 https://jqr1.kmu.ac.ir 10.34172/jqr.2022.08 Vol. 11, No. 3, 2022, 206-217 Review Article Citation: Geçkil E, Sabetsarvestani R, Hadianshirazi Z. A systematic review of nursing theories in pediatrics settings. J Qual Res Health Sci. 2022;11(3):206-217. doi:10.34172/jqr.2022.08 Journal of Qualitative Research in Health Sciences Open Access Publish Free