Support mechanisms for nurses aspiring to or undertaking clinical academic development globally – protocol for a scoping review

Introduction Nurse researchers often lack awareness of how to start a clinical academic research career and often lack clear entry routes. This scoping review aims to identify the range and nature of clinical academic opportunities that are available for nurses. This will identify knowledge gaps and provide the basis for future research. Methods and analysis The review will be conducted using scoping review methodology and reported in accordance with PRISMA-SCR guidelines. We will search CINAHL (EBSCO), Medline (OVID), AMED (OVID) and ProQuest using a search based on the facet’s ‘nurse’ ‘research’ and ‘clinical academic’. Grey literature and a hand search of the reference lists will be conducted for additional publications which meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We will include articles with a focus on nurses who are interested in undertaking clinical academic development, or a focus on programmes aimed at supporting clinical academic development for nurses. Following initial screening of titles and abstracts, relevant full text papers will be screened for inclusion. A proportion of all records at each stage will be screened by a second reviewer. We will use a prespecified form to extract data which will be charted and presented in tabular form. Samples of data extraction and charting will be checked by a second reviewer. This will support a narrative summary structured around key identified variables agreed iteratively by the review team. Ethics and dissemination No ethical or Health Research Authority approval is required to undertake this scoping review. This protocol has been registered with The Open Science Framework (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/WVDXH). The findings will inform future research exploring the support mechanisms for nurses aspiring to undertake clinical academic development and be disseminated via presentations at national conferences and publications in peer reviewed journals. Article summary Strengths and Limitations of this study This is the first exploration review of the nature and range of clinical academic opportunities that are available to nurses. The scoping review will be undertaken and reported following established guidelines to ensure transparency and reproducibility. The identification and synthesis of data will include published articles found on the CINAHL, Medline, AMED and ProQuest databases, grey literature available on relevant organisations and professional bodies, and a hand search of reference lists. The scoping review will be focussed on nurses undertaking clinical academic development programmes, as they are the largest group of registered healthcare professionals and are underrepresented as research leaders. Due to limited resources, only a proportion of the screening will be undertaken be 2 nd reviewer, and literature not available in English Language will be excluded. We will mitigate these issues by use of additional checks and listing of relevant foreign language studies.