Clinician factors influencing decision-making in emergency general surgery (EGS): a scoping review protocol

Emergency general surgery (EGS) decisions often occur under time pressure and with reduced patient involvement in comparison to the elective setting. Variation in decision-making in the field of EGS is partly attributable to patient and contextual factors, but clinician factors also likely shape decisions.This scoping review aims to clarify which clinician factors have been investigated in relation to decision-making in adult EGS, which have been identified as influential, and the methods used to measure them.

Any studies reporting on individual clinician factors and decision-making in EGS will be eligible. Studies must be only in adult populations (patients aged 18 and over). This review will consider quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods study designs.This scoping review will be conducted in accordance with the methodology developed by the Joanna Briggs Institute and reported in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols guidelines. This protocol was prospectively registered with the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/xcqp4. We will search MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, CDSR and CENTRAL. The search strategy will be adapted for each database, and no time or language restrictions will be applied.Two independent reviewers will screen studies for eligibility and extract data using a purpose-designed data extraction form, with disagreements resolved by a third reviewer. Extracted data will be synthesised using a narrative approach to map key concepts, describe study characteristics and identify gaps in the literature.

Ethical approval is not required as this review will use publicly available data. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication and conference presentations.