What works for whom, how and why in mental health education for undergraduate health profession students? A realist synthesis protocol.

INTRODUCTION: It has been shown that mental health education can support positive attitudes of health profession students towards people with mental health challenges, which supports them to provide optimal healthcare to this group. There are many different approaches to designing and delivering mental health education to health profession students. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages, and often mental health education programmes incorporate a multimodal approach in order to reap the benefits of a variety of teaching and learning approaches. The aim of this study is to understand the current landscape of teaching and learning approaches to mental health education for undergraduate health profession students. We will examine the features of successful outcomes for health profession students for:Learning environment.Knowledge development and retention.Confidence. MOTIVATION: Preparedness for professional practice. METHODS: For this, a realist synthesis has been chosen in order to review the literature. Realist synthesis lends itself to the review of complex interventions such as mental health education for undergraduate health profession curricula because it seeks to uncover the range of different mechanisms and context configurations that produce different outcomes. Health profession education and education practice, in general, is complex. A patient and public involvement (PPI) group is involved throughout this study and includes undergraduate health profession students, and members of the St John of Gods Hospital Consumers and Carers Council who are involved at every stage of the research. This study will engage with a stakeholder group who will support the refining of the programme theory. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval has been sought and approved by Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland Ethical Committee (REC number: 212622783). We will aim to write up and publish the full synthesis as a journal article. We will also discuss ways of dissemination outside of academia with our PPI group.

Improving breastfeeding support through the implementation of the baby friendly hospital and community initiatives: a scoping review protocol.

Background: Improved breastfeeding practices have the potential to save the lives of over 823,000 children under 5 years old globally every year. Exclusively breastfeeding infants for the first six months would lead to the largest infant mortality reduction. The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is a global campaign by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which promotes best practice to support breastfeeding in maternity services. The Baby-Friendly Community Initiative (BFCI) is an extension of the BHFI's 10 th step of the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and of the BFHI overall. Its focus is on community-based breastfeeding supports for women. There have been no known attempts to synthesise the overall body of evidence on the BFHI in recent years, and no synthesis of empirical research on the BFCI. This scoping review asks the question: what is known about the implementation of the BFHI and the BFCI globally? Methods and analysis: This scoping review will be conducted according to the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews. Inclusion criteria will follow the Population, Concepts, Contexts approach. A data charting form will be developed and applied to all the included studies. Qualitative and quantitative descriptive analysis will be undertaken. In order to address equity of access to the BFHI/BFCI, the Levesque et al. (2013) access to health care framework will be used as a lens to analyse the charted data in relation to this aspect of the review. An already established group of stakeholders with experience of infant feeding policy and implementation in Malawi will be consulted, to obtain expert views on the findings of the scoping review. Conclusion: This review will establish gaps in current evidence which will inform areas for future research in relation to this global initiative.