Healthcare acceptability is an important concept in health sciences including psychology, yet, it remains controversial and poorly understood by all health researchers. Healthcare acceptability cuts across all health disciplines and refers to human behavioural constructs such as attitude, trust and respect, which are expressed when patients and health professionals interact. Many studies have described the acceptability of maternal healthcare, but there is no universally accepted definition. We describe a protocol for a scoping review of existing literature to shed-light-on the definition and conceptualisation of maternal healthcare acceptability from patients’ perspectives. We will employ a search strategy, with eligibility criteria, to search for relevant articles from electronic and grey literature. Two researchers will independently screen the retrieved articles using Rayyan software and chart data from included articles. An inter-reviewer agreement of 80% will be deemed appropriate. We will interpret key findings in line with available evidence, while being consistent with the research purpose. We will discuss the study’s limitations, implications for practice and propose future research projects.

Healthcare acceptability is critical in global debates for improving service delivery across all health specialities. The concept of healthcare acceptability reflects interactions between patients and healthcare providers and is expressed through attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, experiences and expectations. These terms are often used to describe human behaviour in psychology science. The concept of healthcare acceptability is widely used in healthcare, particularly in psychology literature, and is still ill-defined and poorly conceptualized. This scoping review will explore and describe the depth and breadth of evidence on healthcare acceptability definitions, conceptual frameworks and applications through the lens of patients and healthcare providers in HIV, TB and maternal healthcare services. We will search electronic databases and grey literature, guided by a search strategy in accordance with eligibility criteria. Two researchers will independently screen and chart data from retrieved and included articles. An agreement of 80% between reviewers’ results will be considered appropriate and a third reviewer will resolve any conflict between them. The results will be presented in graphical, charted or tabular form accompanied by a summary linking the results to the objectives. The researchers will discuss and disseminate important findings, limitations and propose potential implications and future research projects.