Background Governments should be encouraged to use evidence to enact policies and legislation to prevent injuries. This requires an understanding of the status of existing legislation. Therefore, we carried out a scoping analysis of documents in Nepal to identify the policy gaps.

Methods We identified policy documents via stakeholder engagement and meetings, and online searches of the national law repository and libraries of the planning commission, ministries/departments and NGOs. In this scoping study we used questions from the four domains of the Assessment of Child Injury Prevention Policies (A-CHIPP) framework to evaluate the availability and completeness of policies to support child injury prevention, with a particular focus on the ‘policy content’ and ‘supportive factors’ domains. Policies were not formally scored using the framework.

Findings We did not find any policies exclusively written to prevent injuries in children. The only child-focused policies identified addressed child-labour and child-protection. Of 16 framework questions exploring the content of policies to prevent specific injuries, none mentioned exclusive provisions for child injuries, but 7 were partially addressed. For 14 questions exploring the ‘supportive factors’ domain, only 6 indicators were partially addressed, and none were specific to children. Identified policies were around Road Traffic Injuries with components of motorised 2-wheelers and pedestrians but child passenger safety was missing. We identified no policies relating to the prevention of drowning, poisoning, falls, burns or suffocation, choking and asphyxia.

Conclusion This scoping study indicated gaps in existing policies that would justify a formal application of the ACHIPP framework in Nepal.

Policy implication There are opportunities to develop existing policies in Nepal to address the injury prevention needs of children.