Introduction Emotional disclosure (ED) is a term used
to describe the therapeutic expression of emotion. ED
underlies a variety of therapies aimed at improving
well-being for various populations, including people with
palliative-stage disease and their family carers. Systematic
reviews of ED-based psychotherapy have largely focused
on expressive writing as a way of generating ED. However,
heterogeneity in intervention format and outcome
measures has made it difficult to analyse efficacy. There is
also debate about the mechanisms proposed to explain the
potential effects of ED.
We present a scoping review protocol to develop a
taxonomy of ED-based interventions to identify and
categorise the spectrum of interventions that could
be classified under the umbrella term of ‘emotional
disclosure’ in the palliative care setting. By mapping these
to associated treatment objectives, outcome measures
and explanatory frameworks, the review will inform future
efforts to design and evaluate ED-based therapies in this
population.
Methods and analysis The review will be guided
by Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage scoping review
framework and Levac’s extension. The following electronic
databases will be searched from database inception:
CENTRAL, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied
Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of
Science and MEDLINE. We will include peer-reviewed
studies and reviews. We will also check grey literature,
including clinical trial registers, conference proceedings
and reference lists, as well as contacting researchers.
Articles will be screened by at least two independent
reviewers and data charted using an extraction form
developed for this review. Results will be analysed
thematically to create a taxonomy of interventions,
outcome measures and theoretical frameworks.
Ethics and dissemination This review does not require
ethical approval as it is a secondary analysis of preexisting,
published data. The results will inform future
research in the development of ED-based interventions
and evaluation of their efficacy in the palliative care
setting. We will disseminate findings through peerreviewed
journals
