Nurse Practitioner Care for Hospitalized Children: A Scoping Review Protocol

Background: Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are increasingly integrated into pediatric inpatient teams in response to evolving healthcare needs and workforce challenges. However, evidence describing how NP roles are operationalized, implemented, and sustained in general pediatric ward settings remain fragmented. Objective: This scoping review will synthesize international literature on NP roles in general pediatric inpatient settings, with a focus on determinants of role implementation. Guided by the Participatory, Evidence-based, Patient-focused Process for Advanced Practice Nursing (PEPPA) framework, this review will examine implementation strategies, outcomes, timelines, facilitators, barriers, and required resources to inform future integration and evaluation. Methods: This scoping review will be conducted in accordance with Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology and reported following PRISMA-ScR guidelines. A PRESS-reviewed search strategy will be applied to Scopus, MEDLINE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, Cochrane Central, ProQuest, grey literature, and reference lists for English and French language studies published from 2016 onward. Studies relating to NP roles in general pediatric wards internationally will be included. Data extraction and synthesis will be structured using the PEPPA framework's implementation domain. Findings will be summarized descriptively and presented in tables and narrative synthesis. Conclusions: A targeted synthesis focused on determinants of NP role implementation in this context is needed. This review will clarify how NPs roles have been integrated in general pediatric wards, highlight enabling and constraining factors, and will identify gaps to guide future research, practice redesign, and policy development.