Interventions to promote early child development in the Middle East and North Africa Arab countries: protocol for a scoping review

The Middle East and North Africa Arab countries face several economic, political, and social challenges that negatively impact early child physical, cognitive, and emotional development. This scoping review aims to summarize the landscape of interventions designed to promote early child development in children under 5 years of age in the Middle East and North Africa Arab countries, highlighting knowledge gaps and areas for future research. We searched Embase, PsycINFO, MEDLINE OVID, and Scopus databases from conception for randomized and non-randomized trials reporting early child development interventions in children below 5 years of age in these countries, published in English, French, or Arabic. We also searched the grey literature and reference lists of relevant peer-reviewed studies and reviews identified in the screening process. Two independent reviewers screened titles and abstracts of retrieved papers for inclusion with discrepancies resolved by discussion among three reviewers, and similarly for reviewing the full text of papers that passed the title/abstract screening phase. We extracted and charted data on study design, participant characteristics of the intervention and comparison groups, study setting, intervention details, primary and secondary outcomes, and key findings using a pre-piloted standardized data extraction form. Data extraction and charting were done independently and in duplicate. The findings were summarized as a descriptive numerical summary of key study characteristics, as well as a thematic narrative synthesis of the intervention types, target populations, and outcomes. The protocol was prospectively registered in Open Science Framework before searching, study selection, and data extraction commenced.