Entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate health sciences students: a scoping review protocol

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article presents a scoping review protocol for mapping evidence on entrepreneurial intention (EI) among undergraduate health sciences students, with emphasis on Nursing, Medicine, and Psychology. Its contribution is methodological: it converts generic Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidance into a pre-specified, reusable workflow for reviews at the interface of entrepreneurship research and health professions education, two fields with distinct vocabularies. Compared with a standard JBI protocol, it adds (i) criteria-based selection of seed articles and derivation of search terms from both literatures, using truncated stems (e.g., entrepren*) and entrepreneurship-specific terms (e.g., "new venture"); (ii) a multilingual layer with Portuguese and Spanish terms and trilingual DeCS descriptors; (iii) use of reviews only for backward and forward citation chasing; (iv) a disaggregation rule for mixed samples; (v) a reproducible grey-literature procedure; and (vi) a pre-execution step justifying the added value of the review for its population and context. Seven databases and grey literature will be searched without language or date restrictions; two independent reviewers will screen and chart data, and reporting will follow PRISMA-ScR. The protocol is a starting template for reviews on EI among health sciences students; its transferable components can be adapted to adjacent disciplines.•Provides a reusable, pre-registered JBI/PRISMA-ScR workflow for scoping reviews at the interface of entrepreneurship research and health professions education, focused on entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate health sciences students.•Adds a criteria-based seed-article procedure for deriving search terms from both fields, using truncated root stems (e.g., entrepren*) and entrepreneurship-specific terms (e.g., "new venture"), together with a multilingual (English, Portuguese, Spanish) search layer.•Specifies a citation-chasing-only rule for reviews, a disaggregation rule for mixed samples, and a pre-execution step to justify the added value of the review for its population and context, indicating which components can be reused in adjacent disciplines and which must be adapted.•Strengths: the protocol follows the JBI methodology and PRISMA-ScR reporting standards, is pre-registered on the Open Science Framework, and employs a three-step search strategy that combines controlled vocabulary descriptors and free-text keywords across seven databases, with explicit core terms per PCC component, thereby enhancing transparency and reproducibility.•Limitations: in accordance with scoping review methodology, formal critical appraisal of the included studies will not be performed; studies with interdisciplinary or mixed samples may be excluded when data specific to undergraduate health sciences students cannot be disaggregated; heterogeneity across educational and cultural contexts may constrain the comparability of the synthesized findings; records in languages other than English, Portuguese, and Spanish that lack English metadata may be missed; and the protocol is a starting template for reviews on entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate health sciences students, so its population block and added-value justification must be redeveloped for other populations.

Source: MethodsX

DOI: 10.1016/j.mex.2026.104215

Institutions: Faculdade de Medicina de São José do Rio Preto, University of Beira Interior, Hospital Center of Cova da Beira

Language: English

Topic: Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences

Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,260

Funder: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

OpenAlex ID: W7154462432