Knowledge and practices of youth awareness on death and dying in school settings: a systematic scoping review protocol.

Background: Awareness-raising and education have been identified as strategies to counter the taboo surrounding death and dying. As the favoured venue for youth education, schools have an essential role to play in informing future decision-makers. However, school workers are not comfortable addressing the subjects of death and dying, which, unlike other social issues, have no guidelines to influence awareness of these subjects in youth.

Objectives: To systematically explore the knowledge and practices on raising awareness about death and dying in schools, the viewpoints of the people involved (young people, school workers; parents), and the factors that either promote or hinder awareness practices.

Method: The scoping review method of Levac and Colquhoun (Implement Sci 5(1):69, 2010) will be used. Using a combination of keywords and descriptors, a body of literature will be identified through 15 databases and through grey literature searches, manual searches, consultation of key collaborators, and the list of relevant literature. Publications since 2009 will be selected if they relate directly to awareness-raising about death and dying in schools. Writings will be selected and extracted by two independent people, and conflicts resolved by consensus. The extracted data will be synthesized using a thematic analysis method. Experts from a variety of disciplines (health sciences, humanities, social sciences, and education) will be consulted to enhance the interpretation of the preliminary results. Results will be presented in narrative form and will include tables and diagrams.

Conclusion: The results of this scoping review will contribute to the development of educational practices adapted to young people and to the identification of future avenues of research on awareness of death and dying.