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Mapping the concept, content and outcome of wilderness therapy for childhood cancer survivors: protocol for a scoping review
  1. Miek C Jong1,2,
  2. Anne Lown3,
  3. Winnie Schats4,
  4. Heather Rose Otto5,
  5. Mats Jong1
  1. 1 Department of Health Sciences, Mid Sweden University, Campus Sundsvall, Sundsvall, Sweden
  2. 2 The Arctic University of Norway, National Research Center in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NAFKAM), Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT, Tromsø, Norway
  3. 3 Department of Social Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  4. 4 Scientific Information Service, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  5. 5 See you at the Summit, Portland, Oregon, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Miek C Jong; miek.jong{at}miun.se

Abstract

Introduction Long-term childhood cancer survivors are at risk for frailty and have significant health-related issues in adulthood. Various health promotion interventions have been proposed to enhance quality of life including wilderness therapy, which applies the impact of nature on health in a therapeutic context. Previous studies have described positive outcomes linked with various wilderness-related therapies for cancer survivors. However, there is no clarity on the role these therapies play in childhood cancer. The current scoping review aims to systematically map the concept, content and outcome of wilderness therapy for childhood cancer survivors.

Methods and analysis This review will be guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers’ manual for scoping reviews. A systematic literature search using medical subject headings (MeSH) and text words related to wilderness therapy and childhood cancer survivors will be performed in EMBASE, ERIC, Medline, Psycinfo, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus and Svemed+, Sociological Abstracts, supplemented by grey literature searches. Eligible quantitative and qualitative studies will be screened, included, assessed for quality and extracted for data by two reviewers independently. Results will be described in a narrative style, reported in extraction tables and diagrams, and where appropriate in themes and text.

Ethics and dissemination This study describes a protocol for a scoping review that will undertake secondary analysis of data already published in literature and is therefore exempt from medical ethical review. The scoping review will inform understanding of the benefits and risks of wilderness therapy for childhood cancer survivors, their families, practitioners, clinicians and researchers, and will help elucidate the steps necessary for building its evidence base going forward. Results will be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

  • paediatric cancer
  • adventure therapy
  • systematic review
  • nature
  • health

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

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Footnotes

  • Contributors All authors have contributed to the development of the review design and research questions. MCJ conceived the idea for the scoping review, contributed to the review design and development of research questions, and wrote the first draft of the protocol and manuscript. EAL contributed to the review design and development of research questions and provided detailed comments on drafts of the protocol and manuscript. HRO contributed to the review design and development of research questions and provided detailed comments on drafts of the protocol and manuscript. WS contributed to the review design and development of research questions, lead the preparation of search terms and commented on the protocol and manuscript. MJ jointly conceived the idea for the scoping review, contributed to the review design and development of research questions, jointly prepared the search terms, and commented on and revised the manuscript.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent for publication Not required.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.