Health care approaches adopted by professionals in the care of female sexual violence survivors: a scoping review protocol

OBJECTIVE: This review will map the practices adopted by health professionals in the care of female sexual violence (SV) survivors across different health care levels and sociocultural contexts. INTRODUCTION: SV refers to any unwanted sexual act, or attempted act, regardless of the perpetrator's relationship with the victim. Health professionals can strategically address and mitigate the negative impacts of this form of violence. Understanding how health care is delivered across care levels and in diverse sociocultural settings is essential to strengthening care responses. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: This review will consider studies that examine health professionals' approaches in caring for women who have survived SV. Studies addressing other forms of violence, such as physical or psychological violence, may be eligible if SV is analyzed as a separate outcome. METHODS: This review will follow the JBI methodological guidance for scoping reviews. Comprehensive searches will be conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, the Virtual Health Library, ScIELO Citation Index (Web of Science), and across sources of gray literature. No temporal or language restrictions will be applied. Two reviewers will independently perform study selection and data extraction, and disagreements will be resolved through discussion or consensus with a third reviewer. Extracted data will be organized into tables and analyzed through a narrative synthesis of the evidence, comparing the baseline literature and relating it to the cultural context and health systems of each region. REVIEW REGISTRATION: OSF https://osf.io/p4fkx.