The COVID-19 pandemic’s unprecedented nature has exposed significant vulnerabilities in most public health systems and highlighted the importance of coordinated responses across various levels of government. A global debate emerged on the types of health measures necessary to curb the rapid spread of contagious and/or lethal diseases. However, some of these measures involved restricting individual rights, raising significant ethical, legal and public health questions. The protocol of this systematic review aims to address a critical gap in the literature by analysing how Public Health Surveillance services worldwide implemented compulsory right-restricting measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what impacts these measures had on public health outcomes and individual rights.

This protocol focuses on studies about right-restricting measures enacted by Public Health Surveillance services during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be unrestrictive as to period (starting in 2019, when the outbreak was identified), language or publication status in a preliminary stage. It will include only peer-reviewed publications, discarding opinion articles, editorials, conference papers and non-peer-reviewed publications. Considering the PICo strategy, the research question of this systematic review can be formulated as follows: Problem—right-restricting measures enacted by Public Health Surveillance services; Interest—implementation modalities and impacts on individual rights and public health outcomes; Context—COVID-19 pandemic. This protocol will use the following databases: Pubmed, Cochrane/CENTRAL, Embase, Scopus and Web of Science. Considering the various measures that may have been adopted, the following categories of analysis will be used: (i) Public Health Surveillance as a field, (ii) the various specific areas of Health Surveillance, (iii) law enforcement, (iv) right-restricting measures and consent, (v) interactions between right-restricting measures and routine Public Health Surveillance functions, (vi) differences between countries and (vii) Health Surveillance lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic. These categories are not strictly mutually exclusive; however, each study will be assigned to the category most aligned with its primary focus. To ensure the validity and reliability of findings, each study will have its risk of bias assessed at both the study and outcome levels.

Patients and the public were not involved in the design, conduct, reporting or dissemination plans of this systematic review. The results will be presented in one or more articles to be submitted to scientific journals and may also be presented at scientific conferences and to public policy makers.

This systematic review protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on 20 November 2024 (registration number CRD42024613039).

Existing patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) do not meet accepted international criteria for measuring health outcomes of hypospadias treatment. This protocol describes the qualitative development (phase I) of a novel PROM to evaluate outcomes of hypospadias treatments.

Participants aged 7 years and older with hypospadias and caregivers of children under 8 years seeking treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and McMaster Children’s Hospital), will be invited to participate in concept elicitation and cognitive interviews. Concept elicitation interviews will be in-depth and semi-structured to understand concepts important to patients seeking treatment for hypospadias. Cognitive interviews will be performed concurrently to ensure that the scale items, instructions and response options are relevant, understandable and comprehensive. Cognitive interviews will be complemented by expert input. Concept elicitation and cognitive interview transcripts will be coded line-by-line. Participant quotes will be categorised into top-level domains, themes and subthemes. The primary outcome of this research will be to develop a conceptual model representing the patient experience of hypospadias and a novel PROM.

Ethics approval was obtained from Boston Children’s Hospital’s Institutional Review Board (HHS Registration: IRB00000352; Protocol number IRB-P00042425). CHOP, McMaster and CHEO have reliance agreements with Boston Children’s Hospital. Findings from this research will be disseminated at national and international conferences and published in relevant peer-reviewed journals for the target audience.