Quality of life of women who practice dance: a systematic review protocol

BACKGROUND: As general population life expectancy has increased, the need to investigate the quality of life has arisen, especially because it is important that people have a healthy long life and with good quality. Studies are done with specific populations, and in the case of this investigation, the target studies are the ones done with women. Female population is growing demographically and professionally. Women have shown increased levels of stress and higher number of illness. It is known that many practices can be used to improve the level of quality of life and that one of them is the dance. Dance is an activity which combines physical and psychosocial aspects. Moreover, it promotes self-expression, self-esteem, and self-confidence. It relieves women of stress. And it also helps in a variety of aspects such as group interaction, motivation, and positive emotions. In this systematic review, the main objective is to assess the effect of dance on quality of life of adult women. METHODS: Only quantitative studies will be included. Studies will be accepted with any amount of dance practice time. They will have been published in the following bibliographic databases: Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS), Portal da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane from inception until June 30, 2018. There will be no restrictions for geographical location. It will be included studies published in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Only published ones will be included in the review. DISCUSSION: There is a variety of systematic review studies with men and women on quality of life and dance, but this is the first one focused exclusively on adult female audience. It is expected that this review will be useful to promote the discussion about quality of life of adult women and the interest of this population for dance practice. In order to summarize and to explain the characteristics and findings of those studies, tables and information from texts will be used in a systematic narrative synthesis. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42016039961 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13643-018-0750-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.