From legalisation to practice: implementation of newly legalised health interventions in healthcare settings - a systematic review

Objectives Over the last decade, a growing number of health interventions (eg, medical assistance in dying and mitochondrial donation) have become legalised or decriminalised globally. Newly legalised health interventions share characteristics that are distinct from other health interventions, making their implementation more challenging.

They are often highly emotive, controversial and associated with strong opinions and ethical dilemmas, with some of them being high-stake and irreversible. This study aimed to identify, systematise and map the factors that affect the implementation of health interventions that have recently been legalised.

Design A systematically conducted review. Data sources PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE and CINAHL were searched to identify studies published between 2014 and 2024.

Eligibility criteria for selecting studies We included studies if they evaluated the implementation of health interventions that were newly legalised or newly decriminalised. Data extraction and synthesis Data were extracted and synthesised through descriptive analysis.

Both deductive and inductive thematic analyses were applied to map the barriers, facilitators and implementing strategies that influence the implementation of newly legalised health interventions in healthcare settings.