People living with HIV (PLHIV) frequently face psychological challenges, including stigma, stress and social isolation, which can negatively affect adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Even in high-income countries where treatment is accessible, poor adherence can lead to drug resistance, reduced immune function and early morbidity. This systematic review aims to synthesise evidence on the relationship between psychological and mental health factors and ART adherence among PLHIV in high-income settings.

We will include studies published in any language between January 2015 and the date of the last searches. Reports of studies published in languages other than English, and which appear to be eligible for inclusion after the first level of screening, will be translated using Google Translate.

Studies will be included if they continue to meet the inclusion criteria and the quality of the translation is sufficient to extract the relevant data. PLHIV aged ≥15 years receiving ART in high-income countries. The studies to be included must assess psychological or mental health variables and ART adherence. Peer-reviewed journal articles will be the primary source of evidence. Grey literature identified from reference lists of key articles or using Google Advanced search techniques will be included. Searches for published studies will be done in OVID Medline, PsycINFO and Embase. Cochrane CENTRAL will be used to identify clinical trials in ClinicalTrials.gov and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Two independent reviewers will assess study quality and risk of bias using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Quality Assessment Tool and Jadad Scale. Discrepancies will be resolved by a third reviewer. Synthesis of quantitative data will be primarily descriptive. Predictors that have been examined in three or more studies will be reported in detail while those assessed in fewer studies will be presented concisely.

This study will be a review of the literature and will not involve primary collection of patients’ data. We will include amendments to the protocol in the final review. The final study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at conferences. The results of this systematic review will inform clinical practice, guide future research and support policy development that minimise mental health barriers to ART adherence.

CRD420251102248.

Military personnel are a unique population with heightened vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), often exhibiting higher prevalence rates than civilians due to demographic, environmental and occupational factors. These vulnerabilities underscore the need for global prevalence estimates to guide effective, evidence-based interventions. This study aims to quantify the global burden of STIs among military personnel, providing a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment.

This systematic review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Guidelines (2020). Using the CoCoPop (Condition, Context, and Population) framework, a comprehensive search strategy will be conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health and Scopus to retrieve peer-reviewed records published between January 2010 and June 2025. Eligible studies will report numerical STI prevalence data among military personnel. Studies with insufficient information to calculate prevalence or those relying on self-reported STI data will be excluded. Data extraction will include study details, military descriptors, STI prevalence and diagnostic methods. Risk of bias will be assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute critical assessment tool for prevalence and incidence studies. Prevalence estimates with 95% CIs will be reported for each STI and, where appropriate, pooled for curable STIs. Subgroup analyses will stratify prevalence by geographic region, service status, deployment status and socioeconomic factors. Heterogeneity will be evaluated within predefined subgroups using the I² statistic. Data will be presented in comprehensive tables and visualised with graphical tools, including forest plots for subgroup analyses and pooled estimates.

Ethical approval is not required for this review. The results will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication and conference presentations.

CRD42023472113.

Health workers (HWs) and their representative health worker organisations (RHWOs) contribute to the design of pharmaceutical policy in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), but their roles remain underappreciated. HWs and RHWOs can influence drug development, distribution, financing and access; however, which specific aspects HWs and RHWOs contribute to, and how they create change, remains insufficiently mapped within the global health literature. This protocol describes our process for conducting a scoping review to derive, describe, and classify existing literature on how HWs and RHWOs engage in pharmaceutical policy processes in LMICs.

This review will follow the updated Arksey and O’Malley five-stage scoping review framework supported by iterations of methodological guidance and will be reported according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. We will search Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase and CAB Global Health for English-language peer-reviewed literature published between 2005 and 2025. Studies must discuss HW and RHWO involvement or influence in pharmaceutical policy or describe the roles, governance contexts or strategies of HWs or RHWOs in the context of pharmaceutical policy. Two reviewers will independently screen titles, abstracts and full texts using Covidence software to determine eligibility. We will chart data using Excel and summarise the findings thematically. We will consult stakeholders in the final stage of this review to provide feedback on the results of our review and guide our findings further in terms of actionable policy implications.

Ethics approval is not required for this scoping review of published literature. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, academic presentations and policy engagement with global health actors. This review will inform future research and support evidence-informed pharmaceutical policymaking in LMICs.