Community advisory boards to inform behavioural health research in primary care: protocol for a scoping review

Most patients receive behavioural healthcare (BH) in a primary care setting, yet much of the BH research was not developed to account for eventual implementation. Areas of research and intervention that are considered priorities to patients may be absent from our existing knowledge base. Engaging the community in the research process can facilitate translation and uptake. A key strategy for community engagement is to employ a Community Advisory Board (CAB). CABs can assist in a number of research processes, including guiding research questions to fit the priorities of the community and creating research materials that are tailored to the patient population and healthcare setting. There is variability in practices and reporting standards for CABs. The field would benefit from a summary of the state of the current literature on CAB utilisation for BH research in primary care. To fill this gap, we will conduct a scoping review to answer the question, 'What is known about the use of CABs in behavioural health studies in primary care?'.

We will use the guidelines for scoping reviews outlined by Arksey and O'Malley: (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) study selection; (4) charting the data and (5) collating, summarising and reporting the results. Our reporting of the results will be guided by the Arnos and colleagues Toolkit for Project-Based Community Advisory Boards, a set of practical guidelines for employing a CAB. To this end, we will report on how well CABs currently employed in BH primary care research match existing guidelines and what gaps need to be filled by future research.

This review does not require ethics board approval, as no patient data will be collected. We will disseminate findings primarily through journal publications and conference presentations.

This scoping review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/pa3rz/?view_only=31c558eb395a4a9482ee9c5b57ca1c4c).