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Introduction When mental disorders go undetected until later stages, they can result in poorer health outcomes for patients. Primary healthcare (PHC) stands as a strategic setting for the early identification and management of these mental disorders, given its role as the primary care environment for health service users. This scoping review has the objective of mapping and assessing screening instruments validated for mental disorders that are applicable in PHC, particularly regarding their measurement properties.Methods and analysis This scoping review will include studies that have developed and validated screening instruments for mental disorders in the PHC context, irrespective of the age group. Searches will be conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, CINAHL and PsycInfo without imposing restrictions on publication status, publication year or language. Additionally, we will scrutinise the references cited in the selected studies. Our inclusion criteria encompass studies examining any measurement property recommended by the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) taxonomy. The selection process, data extraction and quality assessment of studies will be performed independently by pairs of reviewers. To evaluate the risk of bias within the selected studies, we will employ the COSMIN Risk of Bias 2 tools. The collected data will undergo analysis using descriptive statistics and will be presented in an evidence gap map format for each specific mental disorder.Ethics and dissemination The findings from this review will be discussed through deliberative dialogue with stakeholders and disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. The project was approved by the Ethics Committee for Research at the University of Sorocaba (number: 66993323.9.0000.5500).Trial registration number Open Science Framework - 10.17605/OSF.IO/Z6T5M.