Supportive care needs of patients who had a stroke: a scoping review protocol

Incidences of stroke are on the rise and approximately 80 million stroke survivors worldwide live with disabilities. Supportive care needs of stroke survivors are not adequately defined, and the assessment tools to help care service providers identify these needs are unclear. The overall aim of this scoping review will be to map the supportive care needs of stroke survivors against the Supportive Care Needs Framework.

This scoping review will be conducted following Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) updated methodological guidance for scoping review. This review will mainly use Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework as the basic framework. The review will also follow JBI's updated methodological guidance for scoping reviews to optimise the review. For the search strategy, the three-step method recommended by the JBI will be used in the study. The review will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews. Six English databases, including PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library and PsycInfo, and four Chinese databases, including CNKI, Wanfang, VIP and China Biomedical Literature Database will be systematically searched from inception to the present. Studies published in English and Chinese will be included.

Ethical approval is not required as this scoping review does not involve human participants. The findings shall be disseminated at scientific conferences and published in a peer-reviewed journal.