Coaching to develop leadership for healthcare managers: a mixed-method systematic review protocol

BACKGROUND: An increasing number of interventions have focused on leadership development for healthcare managers, among which coaching is a common strategy. The purpose of the present systematic review is to synthesize evidence on the effect of coaching in developing leadership of healthcare managers. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A literature search will be conducted in six English databases (MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL, Embase, Cochrane library, Nursing & Allied Health Premium, and Scopus) and four Chinese databases (Wanfang, CNKI, SinoMed, and VIP) from inception to April 1st, 2022. The titles, abstracts, and full texts of the studies will be screened by two independent researchers to determine their eligibility. The RoB 2, ROBINS-I, CASP, and MMAT will be applied to assess the quality of randomized trials, non-randomized studies, qualitative studies, and mixed-method studies, respectively. We will then extract the study characteristics, participant characteristics, and study outcomes of the reviewed papers. The Aims, Ingredients, Mechanism, and Delivery framework will be used to extract the components of coaching strategies. For quantitative data, a meta-analysis will be performed if sufficient data are available; otherwise, we will conduct a narrative synthesis. Thematic synthesis methods will be used for qualitative data analysis. DISCUSSION: By conducting this systematic review, we expect to synthesize evidence regarding the components of coaching for leadership development among healthcare managers; the influence of coaching on leadership development among managers at the individual, unit-wide, or organizational level; and how managers view coaching as a leadership development strategy. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020194290. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-022-01946-z.