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Background:

Globally millions of children attend outside school hours care. Children’s activity in this setting is critical to meeting daily physical activity recommendations. Guidelines are evidence-based statements intended to optimise practice. This study aimed to identify guidelines for physical activity and screen time for use in outside school hours care.

Methods:

Guidelines were identified by systematically searching Medline, Emcare, Embase, Scopus, ERIC, Sportsdiscus, TROVE, ProQuest, UpToDate, NICE, SIGN and Google in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Results were screened independently by two reviewers and data synthesized narratively.

Results:

Nine guideline documents were identified from grey literature only (n= 8 USA, n= 1 Canada). The guidelines focused predominantly on the after school care period (n= 9 vs n= 1 for the before-school period). All had recommendations for physical activity, whilst 7 also had screen time recommendations. The guidelines varied considerably in their physical activity and screen time recommendations, though taken together, they recommended> 30–60 minutes of MVPA and< 60 minutes of recreational screen time per session. All guidelines were developed by expert/stakeholder panels, but none followed rigorous guideline development methods.

Conclusions:

Limited published guidelines for physical activity and screen-time in outside school care exist. Guidelines designed with rigorous tools and for other world regions are warranted.