Diabetic foot disease management in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries: a scoping review protocol

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries face a substantial impact from the increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus, which experts identify as a major public health challenge in the region. Despite the escalating burden of diabetes mellitus and its related complications, including diabetic foot disease (DFD), there are noteworthy knowledge gaps concerning the prevalence and trends of DFD in the GCC countries. Furthermore, there is insufficient understanding of the management of DFD within health care settings in this region. The objective of this scoping review is to comprehensively assess the extent and nature of DFD management across different health care settings in GCC countries. The study will use the population, concept, and context framework: the population of interest is individuals with DFD, the concept is the management or treatment of DFD or its complications, and the context includes the GCC countries. The review will include published articles and unpublished quantitative and qualitative research papers, from 1981 onward, aligning with the establishment of the first multidisciplinary team diabetic foot clinic at King's College Hospital, London. The scoping review will follow guidelines from Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) and be reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews Checklist. A comprehensive search will be conducted, across various databases including CINAHL, MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase, Scopus, Cochrane CENTRAL, PsycINFO, Global Health, and the Arabic database Al Manhal, and gray literature sources. Studies in Arabic and English language will be included. A data extraction tool will be used to extract the data and will enable a chronological narrative synthesis of results.