Endotracheal intubation of critically ill patients is a high-risk procedure. Checklists have been advocated to improve outcomes.

We assess whether the available evidence supports an association of use of airway checklists with improved clinical outcomes in patients undergoing endotracheal intubation.

For this systematic review and meta-analysis, PubMed (OVID), Embase, Cochrane, CINAHL, and SCOPUS were searched without limitations using the Medical Subject Heading terms and keywords airway; management; airway management; intubation, intratracheal; checklist; and quality improvement to identify studies published between January 1, 1960, and June 1, 2019.

A supplementary search of the gray literature was performed, including conference abstracts and clinical trial registries.

Full-text reviews were performed to determine final eligibility for inclusion.

Included studies were randomized clinical trials or observational human studies that compared checklist use with any comparator for endotracheal intubation and assessed 1 of the predefined outcomes.