Participatory research in mental health care services in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol

The objective of this scoping review is to identify and map the characteristics of participatory research approaches in mental health care services conducted in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Developing countries have a treatment gap of 76% to 85% for mental disorders. Participatory research can help understand community perspectives, which, in turn, helps develop sustainable, contextually specific services. Although participatory research appears promising, especially in the context of LMICs, the field is heterogeneous in terms of the methods used; the various stakeholders; the design, implementation, and evaluation of services; and outcome measures.

This review will include all studies on participatory research in mental health care services in LMICs. All types of participants (eg, children/adolescent/adults, gender, rural/urban) and settings will be considered.

The proposed review will follow the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. Published and unpublished studies will be searched for in PubMed, Embase (Ovid), PsycINFO (EBSCOhost), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), and Google Scholar (first 10 pages). We will also search for gray literature and screen reference lists of relevant systematic and scoping reviews. Two independent reviewers will screen the titles and abstracts of the studies, followed by full-text screening. Data will be extracted using a predefined form. The findings will be descriptively presented with supporting tables and diagrams, accompanied by a narrative summary.

Open Science Framework https://osf.io/cn54r.