Assessment and maintenance of normal fluid status in older people living in care homes: a scoping review protocol

Maintaining normal fluid status is critical to health and well-being. Older people are vulnerable to abnormal fluid status and associated complications, morbidity and mortality. Care home residents are especially vulnerable due to dependence on care home staff, frailty and multiple comorbidities. However, it is unclear what evidence-based assessments and interventions are available to support effective fluid-status management in care homes.

This article describes a protocol for a scoping review aiming to explore current evidence on assessment and maintenance of normal fluid status in older people living in care homes. It is written in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-Scoping Reviews guidelines. The literature search will cover 10 clinical databases and include research registries and grey literature, and reference lists of included articles. Screening of sources will comprise two stages: title and abstract and full-text screening. Articles will be managed in Covidence and data charting will use bespoke data extraction forms used to generate a narrative synthesis of results. Screening and data extraction will be completed by two coauthors, blinded to each other's results, with discrepancies adjudicated by a third author when required.

As a scoping review of existing evidence, rather than conducting new research, ethical approval is not required. Dissemination will comprise a peer-reviewed publication, presentation at a national conference focused on care of older people, and local patient and public involvement and engagement groups. We will explore opportunities to develop care home-facing education materials working with our local Applied Research Collaboration.

Open Science Framework: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/AVS5B.