Gender-affirming care in undergraduate nursing education: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

IntroductionTransgender and gender-diverse (TGD) people face a multitude of barriers to safe, accessible healthcare. One way to overcome access inequities is through the provision of gender-affirming care. Gender-affirming care is culturally safe and engaged care that values TGD identities and is focused on depathologising TGD people. Additionally, gender-affirming care encompasses awareness and support of TGD individuals as unique beings, including supporting gender-affirming medical goals for those who are interested. The discipline of nursing is well situated to advocate for gender-affirming care, however, receives little undergraduate education in the subject. Undergraduate schools of nursing (including faculty and curriculum) are in a crucial position to implement gender-affirming care, though how they have done this is not widely known. Our scoping review aims to understand how Canadian and US undergraduate schools of nursing teach and integrate gender-affirming education.Methods and analysisOur scoping review will follow the six stages by Arksey and O’Malley and the advancements by Levacet al, reported on as per the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews. The review will be completed in 2023, with the database searches carried out in spring 2023, followed by screening and analysis.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval is not required for this protocol. To aid in knowledge translation, a visual representation of the findings will be created. Results from the final scoping review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal, promoted on social media to schools of nursing, and presented at conferences and seminars.Protocol registration numberOpen Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Q68BD).