What are the perspectives of General Practitioners regarding the provision of suicide prevention in primary care? – a scoping review protocol

This is a scoping review protocol regarding the perspectives of GP's in relation to suicide prevention in Primary Care. Suicide is a major public health issue and is the largest killer of men under the age of 50 in the UK. (1) Individuals who display suicidal behaviour are more likely to visit their General Practitioner (GP) in the months leading up to the event. (2, 3) The objective of this scoping review is to map the current research on the experiences of GP’s regarding suicide prevention and to identify knowledge gaps within this area. This will help to inform further related work within the research department.

This scoping review protocol will follow the methodologies set out by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and the Joanna Briggs Institute’s (JBI) manual for reporting scoping reviews.(4, 5) A search of Pubmed/MEDLINE and Web of Science will be performed. Included studies will be qualitative, English-language and focus on GP’s perspectives of suicide prevention in primary care. Abstracts and titles of relevant articles will be screened and articles at full-text review will be assessed for their inclusion in the review against pre-determined eligibility criteria. Data will be extracted using a standardised form. The characteristics of the studies included will be displayed in tabular format and a narrative description of the main themes from the included studies will be provided.

This work will be written up as a report to map the current research describing the experiences of GP’s regarding suicide prevention and to identify knowledge gaps within this area. This will assist in producing a focussed and relevant research question for a related research project. Ethical approval was not needed for the development of this scoping review.