Support programmes for parents of children with intellectual disabilities: a scoping review protocol

Evidence shows that parents of children with intellectual disabilities experience high levels of stress, emotional challenges and higher levels of depression. Despite these challenges, support for parents has tended to be peripheral in healthcare services of children. There is a lack of research attention given to support programmes for parents of children with intellectual disabilities despite the importance of parenting for the optimal development of children with intellectual disabilities.

This review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methods manual. The search for relevant studies will be in Medline (EbscoHost), PsychARTICLES, PubMed, CINHAL, Academic Search Complete and SAePublications. Reference mining of full review studies will be conducted. A three-step search strategy will be used, including the use of information management software to manage the search results and to remove duplications. An independent reviewer will extract data using a data extraction tool. Furthermore, another reviewer will screen the included articles in conjunction with the results of the scoping review. The data extracted will be presented in a tabular format with a narrative summary related to the key findings.

This scoping review has received ethical approval (BM20/4/26). A summary of the findings of the study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. This scoping review will contribute to a better understanding of the support programmes available to parents of children with intellectual disabilities. This could be the first step in highlighting the gaps and future directions for the development and implementation of support programmes for parents of children with intellectual disabilities.

Marais JE, Wegner L, Mthembu T. Support programs for parents of children with intellectual disabilities: a scoping review [Internet].OSF; 2021. Available from:https://osf.io/en6cs/.