According to Holstein's theory about radiation trapping effect, the influence of gas temperature and ground-state population density on the effective lifetime of the resonance level is discussed. The results show that the ground-state population density is the dominating factor in the radiation trapping effect. The threshold parameters of radiatoin trapping have been calculated for seven resonance metastable transition laser lines in Ca+, Sr+, Ba+ and Hg+ in different ionization ratios. The threshold temperature of radiation trapping was found to be consistent with the initial lasing temperature for the ionization ratio of 5%, which matches the ionization ratio of 3% to 5% observed in experiment. This consistency reveals that the threshold condition of radiation trapping effect is an important factor for population inversion in lastrs based on the ionic resonance to metastable transition.