Migration of oral health professionals: a scoping review protocol

Each year, many dental professionals are trained; however, many low-income and middle-income countries face a scarcity of dental professionals. This trend has been observed because of the migration of oral health professionals from developing to developed countries for various reasons such as professional, economic or personal. This negatively impacts the healthcare system by causing critical shortages of trained personnel to support the oral healthcare needs of the countries where the oral health professionals migrate from (source countries). The key objectives of this scoping review are to assess the intentions behind the migrations, identify the countries the graduates migrate to and from, examine the barriers to and facilitators of integrating oral health professionals, as well as the challenges they face post migration.

A scoping review will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR) and the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines. Scientific databases such as Dentistry and Oral Sciences Source, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, MEDLINE and Scopus will be systematically searched to identify potential articles. In addition, grey literature will be searched to identify unpublished materials relevant to the topic using Google Scholar and Google. The reviewers will assess the retrieved sources in a three-step search strategy, and a PRISMA-ScR flowchart will document the numbers of identified, screened and excluded sources. The scoping review will collate and present the findings as a descriptive analysis. Finally, the narrative descriptions will be presented in a thematic form based on the findings of the scoping review.

This scoping review is based on a secondary analysis of published data; hence, ethical approval is not required. The findings of this study will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed journal, professional networks and conferences.