Dysmenorrhoea (period pain) is a global public health issue affecting up to 91% of the 1.8 billion individuals who menstruate. While research has emphasised the improvement of menstrual health in low-middle-income countries, undertreated dysmenorrhoea remains an issue in high-income countries (HICs), where individuals often assume their pain experiences are normal. Studies report that individuals with dysmenorrhoea delay seeking medical care, avoid it entirely or are subjected to diagnostic and treatment delays. Difficulties accessing care are troubling, as individuals may suffer without access to evidence-based techniques, as well as the potential for underlying pathologies (eg, endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease) to go undiagnosed.

Many HICs have launched strategies for women’s health to address gaps in care access and knowledge around menstruation. Guided by Levesque and colleagues' (2013) Conceptual Framework of Access to Healthcare, this review will contribute to these strategies by providing an overview of factors affecting healthcare access for dysmenorrhoea in HICs from the point of perceiving a healthcare need to engaging with care, as well as factors affecting perceived quality of care.

This scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute’s (JBI) guidance for scoping reviews and will be conducted with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses checklist extension for Scoping Reviews. Guided by Levesque and colleagues’ (2013) Conceptual Framework of Access to Healthcare, searching will seek to locate both peer-reviewed studies across PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases, as well as using web scraping to locate relevant grey literature. Results will be synthesised and mapped to construct a pathway to care, highlighting factors affecting the healthcare access for dysmenorrhoea, as well as factors related to the quality of healthcare interactions.

This review does not require ethical approval, as only existing data will be analysed. Results will be shared using peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. Datasets emerging from the study will be made available on Open Science Framework.

This review was initially registered on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/2dsrc/) in February 2024, with an updated protocol registered in February 2025.

Stillbirth and second trimester miscarriage have wide-reaching consequences for women, their partners and their families. There is currently little community-based care provision within the National Health Service for women and partners who have had a stillbirth or second trimester miscarriage. There is a research gap in the evidence to guide best practice. This review will seek to understand how, when and where this care is best delivered.

The aim of this review is to identify the key elements of community-based care following a stillbirth or second trimester miscarriage. As this is a complex intervention, a realist approach will be used to establish for whom, how, when and where this care is best delivered. An initial programme theory will be constructed which will be tested against the available evidence and refined. A wide range of evidence including qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods and experiential knowledge will be identified through secondary sources, extracted and synthesised to develop and refine the programme theory.

This review will not require ethical approval as it does not involve primary data collection. The findings will be submitted for open-access publication to a peer-reviewed journal and disseminated to stakeholders.

CRD42024587365.