School of Public Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Department of Global Health, German-West African Center for Global Health and Pandemic Preparedness, Kumasi, Ghana.
BMJ Open. 2023 Sep 26;13(9):e074769. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-074769.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed weaknesses in health systems of many countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite comparatively low rates of COVID-19 admissions and deaths in sub-Saharan Africa, the pandemic still had a significant impact by disrupting health service utilisation (HSU). The aim of this scoping review is to synthesise the available evidence on HSU in sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially focusing on (1) changes in HSU compared with the prepandemic period, (2) changes in HSU among particular patient groups studied and (3) identifying factors determining changes in HSU as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The scoping review will be guided by the methodological framework for conducting scoping reviews developed by Arskey and O'Malley. We will identify relevant studies on HSU in sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic using PubMed (MEDLINE), Embase, Scopus and Web of Science databases from 1 December, 2019 to 31 March 2023. We will search grey literature, government and organisational websites for reports and conference proceedings. Included studies will be restricted to those reported in English or French. Two reviewers will independently screen articles at the title and abstract stage for inclusion into full text screening. We will provide a general descriptive overview, tabular summaries and content analysis for the extracted data.
Ethical approval is not required for the conduct of the scoping review. We will disseminate our findings via open access peer-reviewed journals and scientific presentations. Our scoping review findings will help to determine the feasibility of a subsequent systematic review (and meta-analysis) on HSU during the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 大流行暴露了许多国家（包括撒哈拉以南非洲国家）卫生系统的弱点。尽管撒哈拉以南非洲 COVID-19 入院率和死亡率相对较低，但该大流行仍通过扰乱卫生服务利用（HSU）产生了重大影响。本范围综述的目的是综合 COVID-19 大流行期间撒哈拉以南非洲卫生服务利用的现有证据，特别是重点关注：(1) 与大流行前时期相比 HSU 的变化，(2) 研究的特定患者群体中 HSU 的变化，(3) 确定由于 COVID-19 大流行导致 HSU 变化的决定因素。
本范围综述将遵循 Arskey 和 O'Malley 制定的进行范围综述的方法框架。我们将使用 PubMed（MEDLINE）、Embase、Scopus 和 Web of Science 数据库，从 2019 年 12 月 1 日至 2023 年 3 月 31 日，确定 COVID-19 大流行期间撒哈拉以南非洲卫生服务利用的相关研究。我们将检索灰色文献、政府和组织网站上的报告和会议记录。纳入的研究将仅限于以英文或法文报告的研究。两名评审员将独立筛选标题和摘要阶段的文章，以进行全文筛选。我们将对提取的数据提供一般描述性概述、表格摘要和内容分析。
进行范围综述不需要伦理批准。我们将通过开放获取同行评审期刊和科学报告传播我们的研究结果。我们的范围综述结果将有助于确定 COVID-19 大流行期间卫生服务利用后续系统评价（和荟萃分析）的可行性。
