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Health care professionals' communication of safety-netting advice to patients with musculoskeletal conditions: a scoping review protocol

Health care professionals' communication of safety-netting advice to patients with musculoskeletal conditions: a scoping review protocol
Health care professionals' communication of safety-netting advice to patients with musculoskeletal conditions: a scoping review protocol

Objective: this review aims to summarize the empirical evidence related to safety-netting communication in musculoskeletal health care practice.

Introduction: safety-netting involves sharing information with patients to help them identify the need to seek further help from a health care professional if their condition persists or worsens. There is limited guidance for how safety-netting should be delivered to patients with musculoskeletal conditions, which could result in variability in practice and suboptimal patient health outcomes. Understanding the current evidence base will inform further research into developing practice guidance to improve patient care.

Eligibility criteria: research articles and PhD theses that describe the practice of health care professionals sharing safety-netting advice to adults with musculoskeletal conditions will be eligible for inclusion. Articles focused on care delivered by students will be excluded.

Methods: a systematic literature search will be conducted across 4 electronic databases (MEDLINE, AMED, Web of Science, and CINAHL), Google Scholar, PEDro, PhD theses databases, and reference lists of the included studies. The search will be limited to English-language articles published within the last 10 years. A minimum of 2 researchers will screen the titles and abstracts of the literature for eligibility before extracting data independently using an adapted version of the JBI data extraction tool. Data will be analyzed descriptively, and the findings will be reported in a narrative summary with corresponding tables and graphs.

Review registration: OSF https://osf.io/63w5u.

2689-8381
Horler, Christopher
745f37c7-9935-4239-9f9f-66a3c77918c3
Leydon, Geraldine
c5cdaff5-0fa1-4d38-b575-b97c2892ec40
Roberts, Lisa
0a937943-5246-4877-bd6b-4dcd172b5cd0
Horler, Christopher
745f37c7-9935-4239-9f9f-66a3c77918c3
Leydon, Geraldine
c5cdaff5-0fa1-4d38-b575-b97c2892ec40
Roberts, Lisa
0a937943-5246-4877-bd6b-4dcd172b5cd0

Horler, Christopher, Leydon, Geraldine and Roberts, Lisa (2025) Health care professionals' communication of safety-netting advice to patients with musculoskeletal conditions: a scoping review protocol. JBI Evidence Synthesis. (doi:10.11124/JBIES-24-00517).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Objective: this review aims to summarize the empirical evidence related to safety-netting communication in musculoskeletal health care practice.

Introduction: safety-netting involves sharing information with patients to help them identify the need to seek further help from a health care professional if their condition persists or worsens. There is limited guidance for how safety-netting should be delivered to patients with musculoskeletal conditions, which could result in variability in practice and suboptimal patient health outcomes. Understanding the current evidence base will inform further research into developing practice guidance to improve patient care.

Eligibility criteria: research articles and PhD theses that describe the practice of health care professionals sharing safety-netting advice to adults with musculoskeletal conditions will be eligible for inclusion. Articles focused on care delivered by students will be excluded.

Methods: a systematic literature search will be conducted across 4 electronic databases (MEDLINE, AMED, Web of Science, and CINAHL), Google Scholar, PEDro, PhD theses databases, and reference lists of the included studies. The search will be limited to English-language articles published within the last 10 years. A minimum of 2 researchers will screen the titles and abstracts of the literature for eligibility before extracting data independently using an adapted version of the JBI data extraction tool. Data will be analyzed descriptively, and the findings will be reported in a narrative summary with corresponding tables and graphs.

Review registration: OSF https://osf.io/63w5u.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 24 September 2025

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 506365
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/506365
ISSN: 2689-8381
PURE UUID: b053076a-2e67-401c-aea0-e6b5c4a6ac84
ORCID for Christopher Horler: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-7578-4004
ORCID for Geraldine Leydon: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5986-3300
ORCID for Lisa Roberts: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2662-6696

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Date deposited: 05 Nov 2025 17:37
Last modified: 06 Nov 2025 03:12

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Contributors

Author: Christopher Horler ORCID iD
Author: Lisa Roberts ORCID iD

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