Healthcare Professional’s Attitudes Towards Caring for Children with Disabilities: A Mixed-Method Systematic Review

Background : The attitudes of pediatric healthcare professionals towards children with disabilities play a critical role in shaping the quality of care and support these children receive. Positive attitudes can foster inclusive healthcare environments, while negative perceptions may affect the quality of care. Investigating these attitudes is essential to identifying gaps, improving training programs, and promoting holistic quality care for children with disabilities. Objective : The objective of this review is to systematically summarize, appraise and synthesize available quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research to identify pediatric healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards children with disabilities in healthcare settings. Inclusion criteria : Pediatric healthcare professionals who provide direct care for children with disabilities with varying levels of experience, from diverse clinical and educational backgrounds. Methods : A mixed method systematic review was conducted to identify the healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards children with disabilities in healthcare settings based on Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for mixed-method systematic reviews (JBI) and utilizing Covidence software for systematic review. Six electronic databases (CINAHL (Ebsco), Medline (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), Web of Science, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA) (ProQuest), and Allied and Complementary Medicine (AMED) (Ovid) will be searched, using keywords, truncation and MeSH terms from each database with Boolean operators. The search will be limited to English language. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies reporting on pediatric healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards children with disabilities will be eligible for inclusion. Covidence software will be used for screening, selecting, and extracting data from the selected studies. The selected studies will be appraised based on their methodological quality. The review will utilize a data-based convergent integrated design. The quantitative data will be transformed into qualitative data and analyzed using thematic synthesis. Registration: PROSPERO: CRD42024537564 .