In preparation for becoming a super-aged society with high mortality, Japan is strengthening its comprehensive community care systems and promoting end-of-life care at home. Many nurses realise that providing grief care to families experiencing loss and bereavement is important, but several studies have identified a lack of competence when specialised care is provided to families in need. The aim of this study is to systematically review research on grief care to target families utilising home nursing services in Japan and to identify methods of care that have been published and research that has been reported in the Japanese literature.

This scoping review will follow the Arksey and O’Malley methodology framework. An exploratory review of the literature on grief care in home healthcare will help to clarify the research question (step 1). A broad range of electronic databases (ICHUSHI-Web, PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL/EBSCO and SCOPUS) and search terms will be used to retrieve relevant articles published between 1983 and 2024 (step 2). Studies are systematically selected by two independent reviewers based on eligibility criteria (step 3). The title and abstract are scrutinised to determine if the article meets the eligibility criteria. Full-text screening is then conducted to retrieve only relevant publications. Data are then extracted, collated and charted (step 4), and a summary of the aggregate results is presented (step 5).

This scoping review will collect data from publicly available sources and will not require ethics review. Once data collection and summarisation are complete, the results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, and the key findings of the review will be presented at relevant conferences.