Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Nov 4, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 4, 2025 - Dec 30, 2025
Date Accepted: May 28, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Hydration Treatment in Hospitalised Adults: Protocol for a Scoping Review of Current Evidence and Gaps
ABSTRACT
Background:
Dehydration—specifically hyperosmolar dehydration (HD)—in adults is a common clinical condition associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and hospital admissions. Despite these alarming statistics, current treatment guidelines often fail to distinguish HD from other types of low body fluid status (e.g. hypovolaemia). This review aims to explore the existing evidence on treatment and to identify gaps in the evidence to guide future research
Objective:
The objective is to identify and summarize existing studies on treatment of dehydration in adults and to map the current evidence, highlight gaps in the literature and guide future research.
Methods:
The planned review will be conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. A systematic search will be performed across major peer-reviewed databases, with additional examination of reference lists and citations. Original studies of any design concerning treatment for HD in adults, specifically involving treatment with oral, subcutaneous, or intravenous fluids for dehydration, will be included. Data charting will contain study characteristics, participant demographics, details of HD diagnosis, treatment approaches, and reported outcomes.
Results:
The findings from the included studies will be reported through a narrative summary, supported by descriptive analysis of quantitative data if suitable.
Conclusions:
This scoping review will provide an overview of the current evidence on the treatment of HD in patients referred to hospital, identifying key insights and evidence gaps to inspire future research areas. Clinical Trial: The protocol will be registered at Open Science Framework? https://osf.io/ym65x
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.