Informal caregivers’ feeding experiences for children with cancer: a qualitative systematic review protocol

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this review is to synthesize the experiences of informal caregivers’ feeding practices for children with cancer. Introduction: Changes in eating among children with cancer impact their nutritional status, leading to several negative outcomes. In addition to interventions given by health care providers, informal caregivers’ experiences in feeding these children are worth exploring. Inclusion criteria: This review will include qualitative studies or the qualitative component of mixed method studies examining informal caregivers’ experiences of feeding children with cancer under 18 years old, published in English or Thai in any year up to the present. Methods: This review will follow the JBI approach for qualitative systematic reviews. A full search strategy for MEDLINE (PubMed) was developed from an initial limited search of MEDLINE (PubMed) and CINAHL (EBSCOhost) to identify articles on the topic. The search strategy will be adapted for each database, including Embase (Ovid), MEDLINE (PubMed), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), LILACS (BVS), PsycINFO (Ovid), Web of Science, Scopus, and ThaiJO (TCI). The reference lists of studies included in the review will be hand-searched for additional studies. Sources of unpublished studies and gray literature will also be searched. Two reviewers will separately screen for eligible studies, perform the critical appraisal, and extract data. They will then synthesize via meta-aggregation and summarize the data. The final synthesized findings will be graded using the ConQual approach to establish confidence in the qualitative research synthesis. Review registration: PROSPERO CRD42024501382