Relationship between anxiety and rehabilitation nursing interventions: scoping review protocol

Introduction: Anxiety has a high global prevalence and negatively impacts autonomy and quality of life. Rehabilitation nurses are uniquely positioned to support functional recovery and manage anxiety during rehabilitation, although evidence on this relationship remains dispersed. Objectives: To map the available scientific evidence on the relationship between anxiety and interventions delivered by rehabilitation nurses. Methodology: This scoping review protocol follows the JBI methodology and the PRISMA-ScR recommendations. A preliminary search in PROSPERO, OSF Registries, PubMed and Epistemonikos found no published or ongoing scoping or systematic reviews addressing this topic. A three-stage search strategy will be conducted in MEDLINE® Complete, CINAHL® Complete, Nursing & Allied Health Collection: Comprehensive®, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials®, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews®, and MedicLatina® (via EBSCOhost®). Controlled vocabularies and keywords will be combined to ensure sensitivity and specificity. No restrictions will be applied regarding publication date, language or access status. Screening will be performed independently by two reviewers following the PCC framework. Data will be extracted using an instrument developed by the authors and synthesised descriptively and narratively. Conclusion: This review aims to identify how anxiety influences the rehabilitation process and the interventions implemented by rehabilitation nurses to manage it. The findings are expected to strengthen clinical decision-making, support the development of rehabilitation nursing care protocols, and highlight evidence gaps to guide future research.