A systematic review protocol of advocacy in nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions

Background Advocacy is an important component of nursing, midwifery and allied health professional practice; however, the evidence has not recently been synthesized and it remains a complex concept that remains ill-defined and under theorized. Given the evolving healthcare landscape, including the growing influence of artificial intelligence and professional pressures in workplace settings, there is a timely need to revisit what is known and what has changed about advocacy. This review will generate a comprehensive update on advocacy, seeking to explore how advocacy has been defined, conceptualised and implemented within nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions. A secondary aim is to characterize barriers and facilitators to advocacy in clinical practice. Methods A systematic search of five bibliographic databases have been conducted in CINAHL (via EBSCOHost), EMBASE (via Ovid), MEDLINE (via Ovid), PsycINFO (via EBSCOHost), Global Health (via EBSCOHost) to identify primary qualitative and quantitative research relating to advocacy in nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions. Searches have yielded a total of 45,617 and reduced to 25,900 studies following removal of duplicates. Screening is being performed blinded and in duplicate within the web platform Rayyan. Given that we anticipate retrieving heterogenous studies, eligible studies will be synthesised according to best practice set out in a range of guidelines. Discussion To date, no single synthesis offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary understanding of advocacy including how it is defined, conceptualised, and operationalised across nursing, midwifery, and the allied health professions. Existing reviews tend to be fragmented in scope, often limited to specific professions, settings, or dimensions of advocacy. This protocol outlines a systematic approach to an all-encompassing review that will ensure a comprehensive report synthesizing modern data, covering the full spectrum of advocacy domains and its implications for allied health professions. Although advocacy is routinely practiced by many healthcare professionals, confusion on its scope and application to practice remains a pressing issue. This review aims to inform practice, education, and policy by consolidating key definitions, domains, and implications of advocacy across the allied healthcare workforce. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD420250640543.