TITLE: A Scoping Review of dating behaviours in typically developing adults
AUTHORS: Nicholas Behn, Katerina Hilari, Emma Power, Dr Laura Wolford, Victor Piotto

[DESCRIPTION]
This protocol details a scoping review of dating behaviours in typically developing adults.

[GUIDELINES]
Overall methods and design/rigor

A scoping review will be conducted to assess the potential size and scope of available research literature and identify any gaps in the current research and highlight areas that require further research and inquiry. 

The review will be guided by relevant frameworks (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005) with refinements by Levac et al (2010) and reporting guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR; Page et al., 2021) 

Review question:

Overall question:

What is known about verbal and non-verbal dating behaviours in the typically developing population?

Specific questions:

What theories are used to inform the dating behaviours of typically-developing adults?
What does the published literature tell us about the verbal and non-verbal dating behaviours for typically-developing adults?
What outcome measures have been used to capture the dating verbal and non-verbal behaviours of typically-developing adults?

Literature review:

Dating is an important topic for many clinical populations (e.g. autism, brain injury, learning disability) however, little is known about dating behaviours in the normal typically-developing population. Also, little is known about the theoretical frameworks that help to explain the behaviours required for dating. The review will aim to identify theories and behaviours relevant to dating. Such knowledge can then be used to inform development of intervention programmes and outcome measures for people who have impaired ability to date successfully.

For the purposes of this review, dating will be defined as: “a social activity or exchange of information involving two or more people who have an emotional connection and/or romantic interest in each other”. 

Sources:

EBSCOhost (APA PsycArticles, APA PsycExtra, APA PsycINFO, CINAHL Ultimate, Medline Complete, Sociology Source Ultimate), Ovid online (Embase) and PubMed. Only studies post-2000 will be included. 
Search will be re-run approximately one month prior to final analysis to identify and retrieve any further studies. 
Hand searches will also be completed on the reference lists and citations of the included studies. 

Search Strategy: 

A search will be conducted to identify available literature that addresses dating, flirting and courting in a typically-developing adult population. This will use the following search terms (title/abstract only):

Dating terms: “Dating” OR “Flirt*” OR “Courting” OR “Courtship”NOT “violen*” NOT “aggressi*”NOT “harassment” NOT “infidelity” NOT “cheating” 

Behaviours: “Behaviour” OR “skills” OR “patterns” OR “Persuasi*” OR “Social cogniti*” OR “Communication” OR “Interpersonal” OR “signal” OR “conversation” OR “theory of mind”

To increase the likelihood to incorporating all relevant studies, a search using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) will also be completed using subject and keyword searches of the terms “dating”, “flirt” and “courting”.

Limiters: Human and English and Adult (18+)

Domain being studied: 

Able-bodied, normal, typically-developing adults

Participants/population: 

Inclusion: Studies that describe specific verbal and non-verbal dating behaviours in neurotypical adults (18 years or over). Behavious may be linguistic or non-linguistic, verbal or non-verbal including pictures, photographs or emoticons (behaviours that can be changed or altered). The study must have a primary focus on dating, flirting or courtship (or the intention to) with an interest beyond friendship. 
 
Exclusion: People <18 years of age
and studies with a primary focus on any of the following areas:
Violence, aggression, harassment, infidelity or cheating (including abuse, intimate partner
violence, rape, cyberstalking, lying, deception, scams, jealousy, conflict, rejection); 
Sexual activity and the sexual act; studies related to chemical changes in the body or genetic testing; adults with acquired or developmental disorders.
Physical appearance or perceived attractiveness 
Demographic variables, characteristics and qualities (age, sex, income, education, personality types)
Pre-existing dating and established relationships including, pre-marital dating, commitment, dating couples 
Alcohol or drug consumption or involvement in dating process
Attachment styles or relationship quality

Types of studies to be included: 

Quantitative studies using experimental, observational, or survey methodologies; and qualitative studies and review articles will be included. Opinion pieces will be excluded from the analysis but reserved for hand searches of the references. Conference abstracts will be excluded. 

Health area of review
Rehabilitation 

Language
English

Countries
Australia, UK, USA

Dissemination plans
A peer-reviewed journal article will be submitted to a journal in the field of communication sciences and disorders.

Conflicts of interest:

Nicholas Behn is a Senior Lecturer at City, University of London and has previously published work related to dating and communication interventions.

Katerina Hilari is a Professor at City, University of London and has previously published work related to dating and communication interventions with NB.

Emma Power has ongoing grants from the Stroke Foundation and the Agency for Innovation NSW for sexuality research. She is also an author of an in-process online e-learning module on sexuality for the Stroke Foundation and has recently completed a six-year term on the research advisory committee. 

Laura Wolford is a certified member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, runs a business teaching speech-language pathologists to communicate about sexuality with their clients, and has given invited and reimbursed talks about the topic at conferences

[STEPS]
SECTION: Study Selection
1. Reviewers will use Covidence to organize their work. Two reviewers will independently screen the titles/abstracts for 20% of studies for inclusion. 
SECTION: Study Selection
2. If Kappa scores are 0.8 or above, one author will continue to review. 
SECTION: Study Selection
3. If Kappa scores are below 0.8, all articles will be reviewed by a second team member, with disagreements resolved through consensus. 
SECTION: Study Selection
4. If consensus is not achieved, a third reviewer will act as moderator. The same process will then be repeated for full-text appraisal. 
SECTION: Data Extraction
5. An extraction tool will be developed with all authors based on the research questions. 
SECTION: Data Extraction
6. The tool will be piloted on several articles and discussed with the team and any revisions to the tool completed at that time. 
SECTION: Data Extraction
7. A single reviewer will extract study data, with a second reviewer appraising 20% of the studies to ensure reliability. 
SECTION: Data Extraction
8. Disagreements will be discussed to reach consensus, with a third reviewer acting as moderator if consensus is not achieved.
SECTION: Data Extraction
9. Data extraction will include: 
Author/s
Year of publication
Study aims/purpose
Country
Number of participants (and sample)
Number of males and females
Ethnicity
Study design
Theories underpinning study
Identify nonverbal and verbal behaviours
Any associations or predictive models explaining the links between behaviours
Outcome measures (name of)
SECTION: Data Extraction
10. Missing details will be coded as “not present”.
SECTION: Strategy for data synthesis
11. The data obtained from eligible papers will be summarized descriptively. We will count and compare them directly.