Outcome Measurement Instruments for Staff Experience of Clinical Handover: a scoping review

This scoping review will map outcome measurement instruments (OMIs) used to assess staff experience of clinical handover in hospital settings. Clinical handover (the process of transferring responsibility and accountability for patient care between healthcare professionals) is a high-frequency process and a recognised point of vulnerability for patient safety. While much of the existing literature has focused on information transfer and clinical outcomes, the experience of staff involved in handover remains inconsistently defined and variably measured. Staff experience of handover encompasses multiple dimensions, including workload, time pressure, cognitive burden, interruptions, situational awareness, psychological safety, confidence, and perceived responsibility. However, studies use diverse constructs and heterogeneous measurement approaches, limiting comparability and hindering evidence synthesis. This review will identify and map OMIs used to evaluate staff experience of handover and describe how this construct has been operationalised across healthcare contexts. For each instrument, we will summarise key characteristics, including construct(s) measured, format, scoring approach, administration method, and context of use. We will also map reported feasibility and implementation features such as time demands, respondent burden, training requirements, and cost or licensing considerations. A descriptive gap analysis will identify settings, staff groups, or contexts where instrument coverage is limited or evidence is sparse. A single comprehensive search strategy, developed in consultation with an information specialist, will generate a shared body of literature that will also inform a companion scoping review examining quality of clinical handover. Findings will be reported in separate manuscripts to allow focused, domain-specific synthesis. The results are expected to provide a structured overview of existing measurement approaches and inform future instrument development, validation, and evaluation of handover processes in healthcare settings.