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The introduction should be comprehensive and cover all the main elements of the topic under review. Due to scoping reviews being essentially exploratory, it is not expected that the background covers all the extant knowledge in the area under review. The reason for undertaking the scoping review should be clearly stated together with what the scoping review is intended to inform. The rationale of conducting a scoping review should be clearly articulated and stated in this section before stating the aim.

The suggested length for the introduction section of the scoping review protocol is approximately 1,000 words. This section should detail any definitions important to the topic of interest. The information in the introduction must also be sufficient to put the inclusion criteria in context, including an indication of whether or not there are existing scoping reviews, systematic reviews, research syntheses, and/or primary research papers available on the topic, hence supporting the rationale to conduct the scoping review. While the inclusion criteria section of the protocol (explained below) should contain clear details of each of the Population, Concept and Context elements, the introduction must provide sufficient detail in terms of the rationale for each element. Explaining for example, why only primary care settings are of interest in terms of the context of the review question above.