Women’s Experiences of In-Person Sexual and Reproductive Health Services: A protocol for a rapid Qualitative Evidence Synthesis to Explore the Potential Role for Community Pharmacies

Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) care is a fundamental right but sustained underinvestment and high demand for services means accessing SRH care can be challenging. Barriers to access are a cause of health inequalities among women. Globally, novel ways to increase equitable access are being explored. This includes the potential for community pharmacies to provide routine services. This qualitative evidence synthesis aims to explore women’s perceptions and experiences of accessing SRH services in high-income countries and the role that community pharmacies can play in improving equity in access to SRH care. Peer reviewed journal articles from MEDLINE, CINHAL and EMBASE databases will be searched using a designated search strategy. This will be an iterative process depending on the number of articles found. The lead reviewer (supported by a supervisory research team) will assess the eligibility of articles, and extract data using a bespoke form designed for this synthesis. The methodological quality of included studies will be assessed using the CASP tool. A thematic synthesis approach will be utilised to analyse the data. Assessment of confidence in the review findings will be evaluated using the GRADE Confidence in Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research (GRADE-CERQual) tool. Ethical approval is not required.