As care and rehabilitation poststroke are increasingly moving into persons’ home environment, the importance of support from social networks in self-management and rehabilitation has emerged as an important topic for research and practice. While there are instruments used to assess social support and collective efficacy, a clearer scope of the availability and quality of these instruments is needed. This clarification will enable the development of interventions integrating social network perspectives in poststroke rehabilitation.

To assess the availability and quality of instruments assessing social support and collective efficacy, a scoping review will be conducted and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines (PRISMA-ScR). Literature searches conducted between 14 November 2024 and 15 November 2024 in the CINAHL and PubMed/Medline databases resulted in 4631 articles potentially eligible. After removing duplicates, 4121 articles’ titles and abstracts were initially screened. Full-text screening, searches of reference lists and data extraction started in June 2025. Starting August 2025, two reviewers will assess the full texts against the inclusion criteria in Covidence using a coding template. Identified instruments will be appraised following the COSMIN (Consensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments guidelines) and analysed using a narrative descriptive method. Results will be reported in February 2026 according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines.

Ethical approval is not required for this scoping review, as it does not involve primary data. However, this review follows established ethical guidelines and best practices, and included studies will be reviewed to ensure that they received ethical approval and included informed consent. Results from the review will be disseminated through an article in a scientific journal, at relevant conferences and surmised to stroke organisations. A policy brief will be developed for health and social care professionals and policy makers.

The aim of this scoping review was to map the nature and extent of the existing literature on mental health interventions for humanitarian volunteers in disaster contexts. The study also explored how the interventions were evaluated.

The methodology of this scoping review followed the extended guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews.

Five academic bibliographic databases (PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, EBSCOhost and Google Scholar), grey literature websites (Google Scholar, ProQuest, Policy Commons, etc.) and relevant organisational archives were systematically searched for eligible documents.

Both peer-reviewed and grey literature studies on mental health interventions for humanitarian volunteers in the context of any type of disaster were eligible for inclusion. Research papers that evaluated any such intervention were also included. Documents that targeted professional humanitarian workers or explored physical health conditions or diseases in disaster contexts, letters to the editor, comments, correspondence and research protocols were excluded. There were no restrictions in terms of the date and language of the documents.

A systematic search of the targeted databases was conducted from 12 May 2025 to 20 May 2025. Deduplication, screening and full-text evaluation for the selection of documents were done using the online version of Rayyan. Data were collected and recorded into a structured Microsoft Excel sheet. Two researchers individually conducted the selection of the articles and the extraction of data. A third researcher helped to resolve any discrepancies if required.

A total of 2627 documents were retrieved by searching the targeted databases and websites. After matching them with the eligibility criteria, 20 documents were included in the final list. 14 of them were research papers; the rest was organisational literature. All the papers were from 2006 and later, except one that was from 1998. No documents were found from the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan regions. 10 broad categories of interventions were identified, which were either implemented in the field or suggested in the form of guidelines. Most of the interventions were postexposure and preventive in nature. Psychological first aid was the most widely used intervention in this context, being used by the national societies of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Nine of the documents were research papers evaluating the effectiveness of the interventions using different scales and customised questionnaires. Four of them did not observe any notable effect on the mental health of the participants.

Over the past two decades, the evidence on mental health interventions for humanitarian volunteers has grown. The reviewed literature documented various interventions and guidelines that need further study and testing to both prove and improve their effectiveness. Organisational policies could incorporate and further evaluate these to ensure the psychosocial well-being of volunteers. A review of research papers on intervention effectiveness found heterogeneity in settings, designs, interventions and methods, precluding a systematic review. More research is needed on individual interventions, volunteer perceptions and comparing interventions to identify the most effective ones. Additionally, comparing pre-exposure and postexposure interventions with multimodal systems that support volunteers throughout deployment is recommended.