Terminology and methods used to differentiate injury intent of hospital burn patients in South Asia: a systematic scoping review protocol

BACKGROUND: The greatest proportion of burn injuries globally occur in South Asia, where there are also high numbers of intentional burns. Burn injury prevention efforts are hampered by poor surveillance data on injury intent. There is a plethora of local routinely collected data in the research literature from South Asia that could be used for epidemiological purposes, but it is not known whether the definitions and methods of differentiation of injury intent are sufficiently homogenous to allow valid study comparisons. METHODS: We will conduct a systematic scoping review to understand terminology and methods used to differentiate injury intent of hospital burn patients in South Asia. The objectives of the study are to: determine the breadth of terminology and common terms used for burn injury intent; to determine if definitions are comparable across studies where the same term is used; and to appraise the rigour of methods used to differentiate burn injury intent and suitability for comparison across studies. The databases Embase, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and PakMediNet will be searched. Screening and data extraction will be completed independently by two reviewers. To be included, the article must be as follows: peer reviewed, primary research, study cutaneous burns, based on hospital patients from a country in South Asia, and use intent terminology or discuss a method of differentiation of injury intent. Results will be restricted to English language studies. No date restrictions will be applied. A plain language summary and terminology section are included for non-specialist readers. DISCUSSION: Results will be used to inform stakeholder work to develop standardised terminology and methods for burn injury intent in South Asia. They will be published open access in peer-reviewed journals wherever possible. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: This review has been registered with the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/DCYNQ). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-023-02317-y.