Health service experiences of gender- and sexually diverse intended parents throughout the surrogacy journey: a scoping review protocol.

OBJECTIVE

This scoping review will identify and map health-related literature concerning gender- and sexually diverse individuals engaging with surrogacy in health care settings, including the stages of the surrogacy journey, and any reported barriers and facilitators.

INTRODUCTION

Gestational surrogacy involves engagement with multiple health services and professionals across fertility, maternity, birth, and postnatal care, where cis-heteronormative assumptions about people's identities, family structure, and parenthood persist. Evidence indicates that gender- and sexually diverse individuals often report poorer experiences in health services, compared with cisgender heterosexual individuals. Bias, discrimination, and the absence of inclusive information are commonly reported issues. There is limited guidance on how health services should support this group, which may contribute to variability in practice and suboptimal outcomes.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: This scoping review will include scholarly and gray health-related literature concerning gender- and sexually diverse individuals engaging in surrogacy within health services. Literature focused solely on legal or ethical issues without health application will be excluded. There will be no restrictions on location, language, or publication date.

METHODS

The review will be guided by the JBI methodology for scoping reviews and reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). Published literature will be located using CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Emcare (Ovid), Health Collection (Informit), and MEDLINE (Ovid). References of included studies will be hand-searched. Gray literature will include government and professional college documentation obtained from websites. Findings will use a combination of graphical, diagrammatic, and/or tabular formats accompanied by narrative explanations.

REVIEW REGISTRATION: OSF https://osf.io/72n46/.