Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Feb 15, 2022
Date Accepted: May 26, 2022
Playground Inclusivity for Children with a Disability: A Scoping Review Protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
While playgrounds are designed to promote outdoor play, children with disabilities may be unable to engage in these spaces due to intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Previous research has examined inclusive/accessible playground design when developing new playgrounds; however, it is unclear if there is a best-practice tool for evaluating the inclusivity of existing playground structures.
Objective:
A scoping review of both white and grey literature will be employed to explore evaluation tools for playground inclusivity, to enable the participation of children with disabilities.
Methods:
The conduct of this study will adhere to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews. White literature searches will be conducted in the following electronic databases: MEDLINE, Scopus, CINAHL, and EMBASE. Grey literature will be examined via a three-step process: 1) a search in the Canadian Health Research Collection Database; 2) a targeted google search; and 3) reference list searching. Titles, abstracts, keywords, and full texts of identified studies will be independently screened for inclusion by two reviewers. A synthesis of included articles will describe the publication and auditing tool details. A summary of the findings will highlight the types of playgrounds measured, types of disability considered, measures of inclusion used, and psychometric properties.
Results:
Database searches for white literature were completed in December 2021. A total of 1471 unique records were returned after the removal of 559 duplicate records. Full texts of 167 studies meeting eligibility criteria will be reviewed. The white literature search will guide the grey literature search. The scoping review is planned for completion in 2022.
Conclusions:
A rigorous search of the literature will determine the availability of tools for evaluating existing playground structures for the inclusivity of children with disabilities. The results will inform future research studies focusing on the application of the tools, as well as knowledge translation activities.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.