Current Physical Therapy for Skin Scars Management: A Scoping Review Protocol

BackgroundScar impairments impose a great economic burden and influence a subjects well-being and quality of life. Despite that, physiotherapy interventions are poorly investigated. Objective of the studyProvide a comprehensive overview of studies addressing physiotherapy and conservative non-invasive interventions for skin scar management, summarizing studies based on scar type, localization, patients characteristics (e.g., age), safety and tolerance of physical interventions. The realization of an infographic will assist clinicians and patients with scars management. Moreover, any knowledge gaps will be identified. MethodsThe review will be conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis. MEDLINE Central, PEDro, Embase, Cochrane Library and Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) and CINAHL and grey literature (e.g., Google Scholar) will be searched for studies considering physical therapy interventions in scars management. Every study considering conservative non-invasive physiotherapy interventions for scar management will be included. This review will look at studies carried out in any context. Articles written in English or Italian will be considered. No temporal or publication type restrictions will be placed. Selection and extraction of data will be done by three reviewers independently, any discrepancies will be resolved by a fourth reviewer. The results will be illustrated using descriptive statistics and summarized in an infographic. Ethics and disseminationNo ethics approval will be necessary.