#OTalk Research – Tuesday July 4th 2023 – Into the unknown, how a scoping review can be a useful tool within occupational therapy.  

 

Hosted by @SamOTantha and supported by @Bevaturtle on the #OTalk account 

One of my favourite descriptions of a scoping review in the literature is as a “reconnaissance” activity (Peters et al., 2015) this was particularly beneficial when faced with needing to present the literature in a relatively unexplored area of occupational therapy for my PhD.   

For context, my PhD aims to explore the lived experience and impact of endometriosis on occupation.  When I started, I could only find a few sources to support my work, I knew there would not be enough data to support a systematic review but wanted a way to synthesize the available evidence and map it to concepts within occupation and occupational science.  A scoping review offered a way for me to be able to achieve this. 

Scoping reviews can be used for a variety of reasons: 

• As a precursor to a systematic review.
• To identify the types of available evidence in a given field.
• To identify and analyse knowledge gaps.
• To clarify key concepts/ definitions in literature.
• To examine how research is conducted on a certain topic or field.
• To identify key characteristics or factors related to a concept. 

^{(Munn et al., 2022)}

Practically, there are a few ways in which a scoping review can be conducted from a methodological framework and the most commonly cited within the literature is Arksey and O’Malley (2005). Which was selected for my review tilted: Why we need to research the lived experience of endometriosis: A scoping review exploring occupational justice and health equality for women and those assigned female at birth with endometriosis (Tavender, 2023).  

The steps outlined by Arksey and O’ Malley (2005, p. 14) are: 

“Stage 1: identifying the research question

Stage 2: identifying relevant studies

Stage 3: study selection

Stage 4: charting the data

Stage 5: collating, summarizing and reporting the results”

These steps are not too dissimilar from other methodological approaches that people may also be familiar with and anecdotally from my experience can either be completed by one or multiple researchers. However, for many reasons scoping reviews are often overlooked or not highly valued as an evidence source. 

Often in practice we find ourselves presented with questions and gaps in knowledge; with little literature to support evidence-based practice. This is even more prevalent in role emerging areas.  A scoping review offers an opportunity to start to find some potential answers to these questions, bridge the knowledge gap and can be used as evidence to support policy development and support funding applications.  The questions for tonight’s #OTalk will explore the use, feasibility and potential for scoping reviews and reflect on its potential to support your area of practice. 

References:  

Arksey, H., & O’Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 19-32. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000119616

Munn, Z., Pollock, D., Khalil, H., Alexander, L., Mclnerney, P., Godfrey, C. M., Peters, M., & Tricco, A. C. (2022). What are scoping reviews? Providing a formal definition of scoping reviews as a type of evidence synthesis. JBI Evidence Synthesis, 20(4), 950–952. https://doi.org/10.11124/JBIES-21-00483 

Peters, M. D., Godfrey, C. M., Khalil, H., McInerney, P., Parker, D., & Soares, C. B. (2015). Guidance for conducting systematic scoping reviews. International Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 13(3), 141–146. https://doi.org/10.1097/XEB.0000000000000050 

Tavender, S. (2023). Why we need to research the lived experience of endometriosis: A scooping review exploring occupational justice and health equity for women and those assigned female at birth with endometriosis. [Poster presentation]. Occupational Science Europe, Odense, Denmark.