Models of palliative care for under-served populations in high-income countries: a scoping review protocol

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to describe models of palliative care for under-served populations in high-income countries, defined as adults of culturally and linguistically diverse communities, low socioeconomic status, and/or residing in rural areas. Introduction: Models of palliative care are processual, referring to the way palliative care services are delivered as people experience a condition, injury, or event. The aim of these models is to ensure people get the right care, at the right time, by the right team, in the right place. Evidence suggests there is a wide variety of models of palliative care, but what is not known is how these models can vary to meet the needs of under-served populations. Inclusion criteria: This scoping review will consider articles that focus on models of palliative care for under-served populations, irrespective of sex, age, or primary diagnosis. Methods: MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), Emcare (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), and Scopus will be searched for articles, irrespective of language, published from 2014. Two independent reviewers will screen titles and abstracts, followed by a full-text review of potentially relevant articles. Discrepancies will be reconciled with another reviewer. Two independent reviewers will extract data from included articles using a data extraction tool developed for this review. Results will be tabulated and/or presented diagrammatically, as well as summarized to explicitly address the objective of the review. Review registration: Open Science Framework osf.io/x4ky3.