Communication skills in dietetic practice: a scoping review protocol.

Objective This scoping review aims to examine and map the evidence regarding communication skills in dietetic practice, and the education strategies used to develop them. Specifically, the review will address usage in practice, perceptions and experiences, and teaching and assessment of communication skills in student dietitians and dietitians. Introduction Communication skills are a key element of practice for dietitians. Dietetic practice is evolving, and there is a need to explore the breadth of literature regarding communication skills for contemporary practice, and how they are taught. Inclusion criteria This scoping review will consider empirical research that addresses dietitians' or nutritionists' communication skills. This will include skills used in dietitian-patient communication, in communication interactions in different employment contexts and diverse forms of communication (verbal, written, technological). We will consider the views of student dietitians, dietitians, and patients, and evidence regarding how communication skills are taught and assessed in dietetics. These may include experimental, quasi-experimental, observational, and qualitative studies. Methods The following electronic databases will be searched: MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), ERIC (EBSCO), and PsycINFO (Ovid) without time limits. Reference lists of eligible studies will be back-searched. Google Scholar will be used for forward citation tracking. Conference proceedings for the previous five years will be searched for eight conferences of the professional associations of dietetics and health care education. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat Dissertations and Theses (OCLC) will be searched for unpublished literature. The findings will be summarized in tabular form and a narrative synthesis.