Key protective factors that mitigate the impact of childhood trauma on poor mental health in adulthood: a scoping review protocol

Introduction A significant proportion of adults in England and Wales report experiencing childhood trauma, which is often associated with poor health and negative social outcomes including a significant increase in the risk of poor mental health outcomes in adulthood. This proposed scoping review adopts a broad definition of childhood trauma and applies both a salutogenic framework and ecological systems theory to explore how protective factors at five ecological levels can support mental well-being. The review will also examine how protective factors vary across different population groups and contexts.

Methods and analysis The scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) protocol for scoping reviews. The databases that will be searched are Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL and Medline. Studies will be included if they include protective factors and involve adults aged 18 and over who have experienced childhood trauma, whether self-identified, retrospectively self-reported or measured using a validated instrument. Studies will be excluded if they focus on participants under the age of 18.

All search results will be uploaded to Covidence, duplicates removed, and titles/abstracts screened by at least two reviewers based on inclusion criteria. Full texts of potentially relevant sources will be imported into EndNote 21. Reasons for exclusions will be documented and disagreements resolved through discussion or a third reviewer. The full process will be reported using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flow diagram. Data will be extracted by at least two reviewers using a tool developed by the team based on the JBI guidance. A best-fit framework analysis will be used, using a matrix developed by the researchers including the four salutogenic domains and the five levels of the ecological framework.

Ethics and dissemination Formal ethical approval is not necessary for this scoping review as it does not involve the collection of primary data. The outcomes of this study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journal articles, conference/seminar presentations, and developed into resources for stakeholders and collaborators.

Trial registration number Open Science Framework (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/CJRUY).