Self-management needs, strategies and support for sickle cell disease in developing countries: a scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION

Sickle cell disease (SCD) poses a significant global health burden, particularly affecting individuals in developing countries with constrained healthcare resources. While research on self-management in the context of SCD is emerging, it has predominantly focused on primary studies, and there is a notable dearth of evidence synthesis on SCD self-management in developing countries. This scoping review aims to identify and map self-management needs of individuals living with SCD, the strategies they employed to meet those needs, and the support systems available to them.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The review will be conducted following the Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) 29 framework to comprehensively examine the landscape of SCD self-management research. Searches will be performed in PubMed, Scopus, Embase and Dimensions AI, with additional searches in other databases and grey literature. Indexed literature published in English from inception to January 2024 will be included. Reference list from included studies will also be searched manually. Two teams will be constituted to independently screen titles, abstracts and full text against the eligible criteria. Data will be extracted from included studies onto a customised data extraction form.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Ethical approval is not required for this review due to the fact that it synthesises information from available publications. The findings will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Also, the findings will possibly be presented at relevant international and national conferences. This protocol has already been registered with the Open Science Framework. The study characteristics such as design and setting will be descriptively analysed and presented as graphs, tables and figures. Thematic analysis will also be conducted based on the study objectives and presented as a narrative summary.

Nurturing cultural competence in nurse education through a values-based learning approach

Global reports of cultural insensitivity continue despite the growing evidence highlighting the importance of nurturing cultural competence development in nurse education and practice. With the widening sociocultural diversification of the patient population, it is now imperative that nurse educators establish cultural competence as a graduate capability. The recent focus on revisiting and recommitting to core nursing values is welcomed, however further consideration is needed to ensure such values are lived in nurses behaviours, when engaging with culturally diverse patients. Undergraduate nurse education needs to embrace opportunities to engrain values based learning in curriculum design and utilise innovative learning and teaching approaches that ensure cultural competence is more explicitly developed. This paper discusses the importance of providing opportunities for students to critically review approaches to care, whilst ensuring cultural competency is a more visible responsibility of the future registered nurse in delivering quality care. The authors outline some practical approaches to examining core values underpinning nursing practice in the context of cultural competence development.