Poor mental health among male students and its links to their perpetration of sexual violence against women students in higher education institutions in Africa: protocol for a scoping review
Tsidiso Tolla, Andrew Gibbs, Mercilene T Machisa, Pinky Mahlangu, Rachel Jewkes, Carrie Brooke-Sumner, Esnat D Chirwa, Kayla Bagg, Sara Cooper, Yandisa SikweyiyaIntroduction
The way men are socialised into their masculine roles has been shown to contribute to male-perpetrated sexual violence (SV) against women students in higher education institutions (HEIs). Global North studies further emphasise men’s poor mental health and its intersection with the construction of masculinities as one of the risk factors for male-perpetrated SV against women. The purpose of this scoping review is to map out the literature on male college/university students’ poor mental health and links to their perpetration of SV against women students in Africa.
Methods and analysis
For this scoping review, we will search for relevant studies from the following electronic databases: Scopus, ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science and CINAHL. Furthermore, we will search for additional studies in Google Scholar and the Directory of Open Access Journals. Additionally, we will search for relevant grey literature. To search for articles in electronic databases, a combination of search techniques will be used, including phrase searching, Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), Truncation, Wildcats, Field search, Proximity search, citation chaining and filters. The eligibility of studies for inclusion will be assessed through the population, concept, context (PCC) framework. Using the PCC framework, we will focus on studies which report on the mental health challenges experienced by male students (of any age) and SV perpetrated by male students against women students at HEIs (ie, colleges and universities) in Africa. We will only include peer-reviewed articles and grey literature from Africa published in English between 1995 and 2025. Empirical studies using any methodology, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods studies will be included. Once relevant studies have been identified, these will be charted. We will collate and summarise the data according to variation (breadth) and key components (depth), combining quantitative and qualitative syntheses. The findings will provide descriptive insights into the nature of research in this area, together with the drivers of, and linkages between male students’ poor mental health and their perpetration of SV.
Ethics and dissemination
The scoping review will not require ethical approval because we will collate data from published peer-reviewed journal articles and grey literature that are already in the public domain; therefore, no primary data will be collected. The review results will be submitted for publication to an open-access, peer-reviewed journal. The findings will be disseminated on electronic and print platforms. There may also be opportunities to present the findings at conferences and South African government seminars.
Study registration
Open Science Framework,