Barriers and facilitators to implementing psychosocial digital health interventions for older adults presenting to emergency departments: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

Introduction Older adults can face challenges when seeking care from emergency departments (EDs) due to presenting with multiple comorbidities and non-specific symptoms. Psychosocial care is a possible target to help improve ED care for this population. It is possible that digital health technologies can be implemented within emergency settings to improve the provision of psychosocial care. However, it is unclear what the barriers and facilitators are to implementing digital psychosocial interventions for older adults presenting to the ED. Therefore, the scoping review aims to determine what are these barriers and facilitators.Methods and analysis The scoping review will be conducted in line with the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines and will use the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. The databases Medline, Embase, PsycINFO and Scopus will be searched. The search strategy will be developed in consultation with a specialist research librarian and will cover three key concepts: EDs, digital health technologies and older adults. Additionally, the first 100 hits of a Google Scholar search will be screened for inclusion. We will include both qualitative and quantitative studies that investigate ED digital interventions for psychosocial care where the primary focus is the views, attitudes, experiences and perceptions of patients, families and staff. After extracting all data, analysis and synthesis will follow the ‘best-fit framework synthesis’ approach and the Theoretical Domains Framework will be used to identify barriers and facilitators.Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval is not required for this scoping review since only publicly available data will be analysed and appraised. The findings of the scoping review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.