Health care professionals' communication of safety-netting advice to patients with musculoskeletal conditions: a scoping review protocol.

Abstract

Objective: This review aims to summarize the empirical evidence related to safety-netting communication in musculoskeletal health care practice.

Introduction: Safety-netting involves sharing information with patients to help them identify the need to seek further help from a health care professional if their condition persists or worsens. There is limited guidance for how safety-netting should be delivered to patients with musculoskeletal conditions, which could result in variability in practice and suboptimal patient health outcomes. Understanding the current evidence base will inform further research into developing practice guidance to improve patient care.

Eligibility criteria: Research articles and PhD theses that describe the practice of health care professionals sharing safety-netting advice to adults with musculoskeletal conditions will be eligible for inclusion. Articles focused on care delivered by students will be excluded.

Methods: A systematic literature search will be conducted across 4 electronic databases (MEDLINE, AMED, Web of Science, and CINAHL), Google Scholar, PEDro, PhD theses databases, and reference lists of the included studies. The search will be limited to English-language articles published within the last 10 years. A minimum of 2 researchers will screen the titles and abstracts of the literature for eligibility before extracting data independently using an adapted version of the JBI data extraction tool. Data will be analyzed descriptively, and the findings will be reported in a narrative summary with corresponding tables and graphs.

Review registration: OSF https://osf.io/63w5u.