Mapping evidence on malnutrition screening tools for children under 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review protocol

BACKGROUND: In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), malnutrition remains a major public health challenge, particularly among children under 5 years of age. Despite nutritional screening tools being developed and available to detect early malnutrition in under five-year-old children, malnutrition continues to be a health concern. However, the level of evidence on nutritional screening tools for predicting early malnutrition at the community level in a high disease burden setting is unclear. The objective of this scoping review is to systematically map the evidence on malnutrition screening tools for children under 5 years in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to identify knowledge gaps. METHODS: The proposed study will be guided by an improved Arksey and O’Malley’s framework, Levac et al. 2010 recommendations, and the 2015 Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines. We will conduct a systematic search of relevant imperial sources of evidence from the following databases: CINAHL with full text, Academic search complete via EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and PubMed. We will search for grey literature from the following humanitarian and aid organization websites: World Health Organization (WHO), The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and governmental departments. Following the database searches and title screening, eligible sources of evidence will be exported to an EndNote X9 reference library. Thereafter, duplicate articles will be removed in preparation for abstract and full article screenings. Data from the included sources of evidence will be extracted, and the emerging themes will be analyzed. The relationship between the emerging themes and the research questions will be critically examined. The quality of the included sources of evidence will be determined by using the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool (MMAT) version 2018. The search results will be presented in adapted Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: Extension for Scoping Reviews chart (PRISMA-ScR). DISCUSSION: We anticipate finding relevant literature on malnutrition screening tools for children under 5 years in SSA. This study is likely to reveal research gaps, which could guide future research on malnutrition screening tools.