Primary care services tailored for adult and adolescent homeless persons: a scoping review protocol

The objective of this scoping review is to explore existing literature on primary care services for adult and adolescent homeless persons, map the evidence and identify gaps in the literature.

Homeless adults and adolescents have complicated health needs, increased need for services, and more barriers to care. Recipients of primary care services use less emergency and urgent care resources. More information is needed in order to tailor primary care services for this vulnerable population.

This review will consider studies with participants aged 13 years or older who are currently or previously homeless. Studies will be included regardless of type of primary care service, country of origin, healthcare delivery system, geographic location or cultural setting.

The proposed review will be conducted in accordance with the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. The search strategy aims to locate published and unpublished studies and will be adapted for each information source. The reference lists of selected studies will be screened for additional citations. The search will be limited to the English language, but not by date of publication. Databases to be searched include MEDLINE (PubMed), CINAHL, Scopus, Embase, PsycINFO, PsychArticles, PsycEXTRA, Academic Search Premier and Web of Science. Gray literature and unpublished studies will be searched. After screening titles and abstracts, two independent reviewers will retrieve potentially relevant, full-text studies and extract data. Data will be presented in diagrammatic form, accompanied by a narrative summary.