Approaches to Facilitate Improved Recruitment, Development, and Retention of the Rural and Remote Medical Workforce: A Scoping Review Protocol.

BACKGROUND

Medical workforce scarcity in rural and remote communities is a global problem, severely challenging healthcare delivery and health equity. Both developed and developing countries report geographically uneven distributions of the medical workforce. This scoping review synthesizes evidence from peer-reviewed and grey literature concerning approaches implemented to improve the recruitment, development, and retention of the rural medical workforce in both developed and developing countries.

METHODS

We will utilize the Arksey and O'Malley (2005) framework as the basis for this scoping review. The databases to be searched include Medline, Embase, Global Health, CINAHL Plus, and PubMed for articles from the last decade (2010-2019). Searches for unpublished studies and grey literature will be undertaken using the Google Scholar - Advanced Search tool. Quantitative and qualitative study designs will be included. Two authors will independently screen and extract relevant articles and information, with disagreements resolved by a third. Quantitative and qualitative analyses (thematic) will be conducted to evaluate and categorize the study findings.

DISCUSSION

The scoping review will aid in mapping the available evidence for approaches implemented to advance the process of recruitment, development, and retention of the medical workforce in the rural and remote areas in developed and developing nations.

Informations de copyright

© 2021 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.