Synthesising the evidence for patient and public involvement in pressure ulcer research: A scoping review protocol

There is a growing shift toward greater inclusion of patients and the public in the design, conduct, and implementation of research to ensure it is more meaningful, relevant and impactful. This involvement creates a partnership in which patients and the public contribute to decisions throughout the research lifecycle. While the impact and importance of patient and public involvement (PPI) in research is becoming increasingly recognised, the extent of PPI in pressure ulcer (PU) research has yet to be fully established. This scoping review aims to provide insights into how PPI has been included and reported in PU research, ultimately placing a spotlight on the impact and importance of reporting PPI to guide future PU research.

Through synthesising literature from a diverse global landscape, this scoping review aims to achieve the following objectives (1) To explore and map the stage(s) of the PU research cycle where PPI has been incorporated (2) To identify and describe the range of participatory methods, including frameworks, guidelines, or tools, that have been used to facilitate the involvement of patients and the public in PU research. (3) To identify and synthesise reporting impacts of including PPI in PU research, and (4) To map and analyse the terminology commonly used to describe PPI in PU research. The Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews framework will guide the conduct and reporting of this review. Nine databases will be included in the search strategy and all articles will be independently screened for eligibility by two authors. Data from eligible articles will be extracted using a pre-defined data extraction table, and the results will be analysed and synthesised using the PAGER (Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice and Research recommendations) framework.

Ethics approval will not be required considering the nature of this scoping review. PPI advisory partners will be consulted for disseminating the results in a format that is accessible and understood by a layperson, in order to communicate the findings to a wide audience and diverse communities. This scoping review will be published in a peer reviewed journal and results will be disseminated at local national and international conferences.

This scoping review is registered on the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/JHT34). As is typical with scoping reviews, this protocol may evolve over time. Any updates will be documented on the Open Science Framework platform, along with a clear rationale for the changes.