Maternal grandmothers’ perceptions of single fatherhood in Africa: a scoping review protocol

Abstract Single fatherhood is on the rise, but the caregiving roles and abilities of a single father are often doubted due to traditional social norms. This doubt leads to psychological challenges and dysfunctional family dynamics. Some maternal grandmothers support fathers parenting efforts, while some doubt single fathers' parenting efforts. The study seeks to conduct a scoping review on maternal grandmothers’ perceptions of single fatherhood in Africa. In this study a scoping review protocol framework will be used. The protocol will accentuate how the researchers will be scoping the existing literature on maternal grandmother perceptions of single fatherhood in South Africa. The selection of articles will be based on exclusion and inclusion criteria. The researchers will rely on six databases (African Journal Online, Scopus, Science direct, EBSCOhost, PubMed, and Sabinet African Journals) to identify relevant studies. Moreover, we will conduct a forward search by using the option "cited by" and/or "related articles" on Google Scholar to find other articles which might meet the inclusion criteria to be part of the review. Boolean search will consist of keywords, MeSH concepts, truncations, and wildcats to retrieve relevant articles from the above-mentioned databases. The data will be analysed using inductive content analysis encorporating discussion with socia role theory.