Health insurance coverage and access to child and maternal health services in West Africa: a systematic scoping review.

"Competing interests None declared."

"Funding None."

"The protocol for this review is registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews database (CRD42020203859). Additionally, the methodology (the protocol) for this review has been published. Even though the protocol was initially intended as a systematic review and was published as such, feedback from peer review indicated that the study was better aligned with a scoping review approach. Upon re-evaluating the research question, the researchers concurred with the suggestion and decided to proceed with conducting a scoping review instead. A scoping review is an evidence synthesis method aimed at identifying and mapping relevant evidence that fulfils predetermined inclusion criteria related to the topic, field, context, concept or issue being investigated. Unlike a traditional systematic review, the review question guiding a scoping review is typically broader in scope. This scoping review followed the methodological framework established by Arksey and O'Malley, which involves defining the research question(s), identifying relevant studies, selecting studies, charting the data, collating, summarising and reporting the results. The review adhered to the reporting guidelines outlined in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extensions for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) by Tricco et al. An iterative approach was employed for the literature search, search strategy refinement, article review for inclusion and extraction of pertinent data. The synthesis was guided by the Synthesis Without Meta-Analysis reporting guidelines and a narrative synthesis method was utilized. Methods: The protocol for this review is registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews database (CRD42020203859). A search was conducted in the MEDLINE Complete, Embase, CINAHL Complete and Global Health databases. Eligible studies were from West African countries. The population of interest was mothers and children and the outcome of interest was the impact of health insurance on access to services. Data were extracted using a standardized form. The primary outcome was the impact of health insurance on the rate of utilization and access to services. The Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tool was used for methodological assessment."