Educational strategies for health care professionals in the context of lung cancer screening: A scoping review

Lung cancer screening has been shown to reduce lung cancer mortality through early detection; however, its successful implementation depends not only on screening technologies but also on the preparedness of healthcare professionals (HCPs). HCPs play a critical role in identifying eligible individuals, communicating benefits and potential harms, supporting informed and shared decision-making, and guiding patients through screening pathways and follow-up. The increasing complexity of lung cancer screening programmes, including evolving eligibility criteria, risk prediction models, and advances in precision medicine, poses important educational challenges for HCPs. The aim of this scoping review is to systematically map and describe educational strategies and interventions developed for HCPs involved in lung cancer screening. Specifically, the review will identify the types of educational strategies that have been implemented, the HCP groups and healthcare settings targeted, the educational content and delivery formats used, and the pedagogical approaches underpinning these interventions. In addition, the review will map reported outcomes related to effectiveness, such as knowledge, communication skills, confidence, referral behaviour, and guideline adherence, where these have been measured and reported in the literature. This scoping review will follow established methodological guidance for scoping reviews. A systematic search will be conducted in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science to identify relevant studies from inception onwards. Two reviewers will independently screen titles, abstracts, and full texts, and extract data using a standardized data extraction framework. Given the anticipated heterogeneity of study designs, interventions, and outcome measures, findings will be synthesized descriptively and narratively, without quantitative synthesis or meta-analysis. The expected outcomes of this review are (1) a comprehensive overview of existing educational strategies for HCPs in the context of lung cancer screening, (2) an overview of how effectiveness-related outcomes have been measured and reported, and (3) the identification of gaps in the current literature. The findings will inform future research, educational programme development, and policy initiatives aimed at strengthening the education and training of HCPs to support high-quality, evidence-based lung cancer screening.