The correlation between lumbar and pelvic dysfunctions in non-post-surgical adult patients: a scoping review protocol

Objective The objective of this scoping review is to understand the extent and type of evidence available on the correlation between pelvic and lumbar region dysfunction in adult non-surgical patients. Introduction It is well known that the pelvic and lumbar regions are connected, but the information about them is conflicting and often not useful for clinical practice. For this reason, we want to conduct a scoping review, to map all available evidence on the topic and provide clearer information for clinical work with on patients. Inclusion criteria This scoping review will consider adult patients with pelvic floor and and low back disfunction with related clinical conditions. The only limitation is post-surgical patients, who will be excluded from this review. This scoping review will consider any study design or type of publication. Methods An initial limited search of MEDLINE (PubMed) will be undertaken followed by analysis of the text words contained in the title and abstract, and of the index terms used to describe these articles. This will lead to the development of a search strategy including identified keywords and index terms that fit each included database: CINAHL, Cochrane Library, PEDro, Scopus and grey literature. The research will be performed from inception to February 2024. No geographical, setting and language restrictions will be applied. Potentially relevant sources will be retrieved in full, and their citation details imported into Rayyan — a web and mobile app for systematic reviews. Additional records will be identified through searching in grey literature and the reference lists of all relevant studies. No study design, publication type, data and language restrictions will be applied. Two reviewers will independently screen all abstracts and full-text studies for inclusion. A data collection form will be used to extract the characteristics of the studies included. A tabular and accompanying narrative summary of the information will be provided. The results of the search and the study inclusion process will be presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for scoping review (PRISMA-ScR) flow diagram.