Decision-making on the location of care of the elderly: protocol for a systematic review of qualitative studies

INTRODUCTION: The elderly must take part in the management of their own health. One of the aspects they should be able to decide on is the place where they want to live. The aim of this review is to synthetise qualitative evidence in order to understand how decisions are made on the location of care of the elderly. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Systematic review of qualitative studies. Six databases have been consulted: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL Complete, PsycINFO and SciELO Citation Index (from the beginning to 29 November 2017). The inclusion criteria will be: studies that deal with the decision-making process on the location of care of the elderly (already experienced by the participants), original studies, qualitative or mixed-method studies and studies written in English or Spanish. The obtained results will be exported to the Zotero bibliography manager. The references will be reviewed by title and abstract and, later, the complete texts will be reviewed for their inclusion. A tool created for this study will be used to extract the data. The quality will be assessed with Critical Appraisal Skills Programme Español. The data synthesis will be carried out using the constant comparative method. All this process will be performed independently by two reviewers. Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research has been used to draw up this protocol. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This protocol did not require ethical approval, since it is a protocol for a systematic review. The plans to disseminate our results include publishing a research paper in a high-impact journal in our study area. Also, if possible, our results will be presented in scientific conferences. Besides, the obtained results will complement and discuss the doctoral thesis of one of the authors of the review. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42018084826.