JMIR Research Protocols

Persistent disparities in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) remain across US residency programs despite recent accreditation requirements. In this context, DEI disparities refer to inequities in the representation, recruitment, advancement, and educational experiences of individuals from underrepresented and marginalized groups. Numerous specialty-specific studies have evaluated DEI content on residency program websites, but these studies differ in their methodologies, assessed content, and reporting practices. There is currently no comprehensive synthesis of how DEI content is presented across the different existing literature in multiple residency specialties. Therefore, a scoping review is needed to map the existing literature.

Despite increasing recognition of adolescents’ and young adults’ mental health needs, many young people continue to experience barriers in accessing timely, acceptable, and responsive mental health and psychosocial support (PSS) services. There is a need for contextually relevant and youth-responsive approaches that meaningfully engage young people, caregivers, and service providers in implementation strategy development. The study aims to co-design a mental health and PSS implementation strategy for adolescents and young adults in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, using a human-centered design (HCD) approach.

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly applied in health care for clinical decision-making, education, and patient communication. However, bias in LLM outputs may exacerbate health care disparities and compromise trust. Despite rapid adoption, there is limited synthesis of how bias is identified, measured, and mitigated in medical applications of LLMs.

Ethics of care lies at the heart of the nursing profession. Grounded in the work of Gilligan and Tronto, it emphasizes relationships and responsiveness to the needs of those receiving care. Although Tronto’s framework specifies 5 elements of care, no systematic synthesis has yet examined how each element is expressed through observable behavioral indicators in the nursing context.

Smoking is the leading risk factor for postoperative complications and is associated with longer hospital stays, reoperations, and 30-day mortality. Smoking rates among patients undergoing major elective surgery are high (22.3%‐43.0%). It is urgent to identify efficacious, strategically timed smoking cessation interventions for patients undergoing surgery.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling mental disorder, characterized by obsessions, compulsions, and substantial morbidity. Approximately 50% of adults with OCD fail to achieve satisfactory outcomes from first-line treatments, such as exposure therapy with response prevention (ERP), with or without medication. This leads to chronic social, educational, and occupational impairment. While invasive procedures such as deep brain stimulation are available for severe, treatment-refractory cases, a need remains for less invasive alternatives. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a noninvasive intervention, shows promise in reducing OCD symptoms. Unlike in depression, rTMS is not yet reimbursed for OCD in the Dutch healthcare system.

Accurate assessment of surgical margins is essential in the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the upper aerodigestive tract or of cutaneous origin and of basal cell carcinoma (BCC). Intraoperative frozen section analysis is the current reference standard but is time-consuming and requires coordination between surgical and pathology teams. Ex vivo reflectance confocal microscopy offers rapid, real-time evaluation of surgical margins and may provide diagnostic information comparable to frozen section analysis while enabling the development of a reference atlas for tumor visualization.

The African continent has witnessed a notable shift in its economic landscape, marked by a significant rise in unemployment and a parallel surge in informal trading activities. In response to economic challenges, a substantial number of women within the informal trading sector in African countries have ventured beyond their home settings to engage in trading, aiming to alleviate poverty within their households. However, this pursuit is often characterized by conditions of poverty and socioeconomic difficulties. These women frequently lack access to fundamental health care and social protection services, and they operate within environments that are suboptimal for health and safety. This highlights a gap in knowledge regarding their challenges and barriers in accessing health care and an opportunity for better understanding.

Stainless steel (SS) orthodontic archwires are widely used because of their mechanical properties, affordability, and biocompatibility; yet, prolonged intraoral exposure can cause electrochemical corrosion and release of metal ions (eg, Ni and Cr) that may affect clinical performance and patient safety. Surface coatings such as silver dioxide have been proposed to improve corrosion resistance, but comparative data for silver dioxide–coated versus uncoated SS orthodontic archwires across clinically relevant simulated oral environments are lacking.

Adolescent mental health care is constrained not only by limited treatment capacity but also by the absence of precise and efficient tools to identify and triage those in need. Measurement-based mental health care relies on standardized assessments to guide identification, treatment selection, and ongoing monitoring of mental disorders. However, conventional assessments present a trade-off: diagnostic interviews lack feasibility at scale, while brief screening tools result in misclassification and suboptimal allocation of limited mental health resources. Computerized adaptive testing addresses this trade-off by dynamically tailoring assessments to individuals, maximizing measurement precision while minimizing assessment burden. Despite these advances, no adaptive assessment for adolescent mental health has been developed or calibrated using African data.

Leisure participation is essential for children’s health and well-being and is also a fundamental human right; however, children and youth with disabilities face significant barriers to participation compared with their peers without disabilities. The Jooay App was developed to address gaps in information and access to adaptive and inclusive leisure activities. A new gamification-based version of the Jooay App was co-designed with users, including youth with disabilities, parents, and health care professionals.

Black, Caribbean, and African immigrant communities in Canada face compounding systemic inequities that undermine mental well-being and limit access to culturally grounded mental health promotion (MHP) strategies. Despite growing national policy attention to these disparities, the landscape of MHP programs and initiatives developed for, with, or by Black, Caribbean, and African populations remains fragmented and poorly synthesized.