Data Extraction

The whole research team collaboratively identified the variables to be extracted from included papers. An Excel chart and a reading card template was developed to gather these variables. Data were extracted from papers included in the scoping review by two or more independent reviewers.  The draft of the data extraction tool will be modified and revised as necessary during the process of extracting data from each included evidence source. Modifications will be detailed in the scoping review. Authors of papers will be contacted to request missing or additional data, where required. The results of the search and the study inclusion process are presented in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for scoping review (PRISMA-ScR) flow diagram (Liberati et al., 2009). Charted data was then analyzed descriptively and presented in tables to synthesize information

Inclusion criteria

Sources tackling access of physical activities or sport of people with physical or sensory deficiency through the means of digital platforms. Peer-reviewed empirical studies regardless of their methodologies (qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods), thesis, governmental reports, not-for profit community organization websites, websites presenting mobile app. Only Sources published in English or French will be included to be understood by the entire research team

Aim

Identify factors to consider in a development of the digital platform that aim to facilitate PWDs’ access to physical activities and sport

Source of Evidence selection

The study selection process included four steps (Levac et al., 2010): 1) identifying the relevant studies from the literature, 2) screening the studies by applying the selection criteria to the titles and abstracts, 3) defining the eligibility of the studies by applying criteria to the full papers, and 4) the inclusion of the studies by re-applying criteria to the full papers during data extraction. For the first step (identification), following the search, all identified citations will be collated and uploaded into Covidence version (Veritas Health Innovation, 2022) and duplicates removed. For the second, third and fourth steps (screening, eligibility and inclusion), two reviewers among CHF, NL, DL, EVB and CC independently completed the assessment against the inclusion criteria and documented the reasons for exclusion to report them in the scoping review. Any disagreements that arise between the reviewers at each stage of the selection process will be resolved through discussion, or with an additional, more experienced reviewer. Percentage of agreement was calculated for each of these steps (the target was a minimum of 70 %)

Search strategy for scientific and grey literature

The search strategy will aim to locate both published and unpublished sources from the scientific and grey literature as well as relevant websites and reports. For the scientific literature, an initial search of Medline (Ovid) was undertaken to identify articles on the topic. The text words contained in the titles and abstracts of relevant articles, and the index terms used to describe the articles were used to develop a full search strategy for four electronic databases and information sources. Databases to be searched include Medline (Ovid), Web Of Science, Cinhal and Embase. The search was conducted in August 2022 with the three following concepts: 1) Adults with physical and/or sensory disability, 2) Digital platform, and 3) Sport or physical activity. The search strategy collaboratively developed by the research team based on the PICO framework (Richardson et al., 1995), including all identified keywords and index terms, will be adapted by the librarian for each included database and/or information source. The reference list of all included sources of evidence will be screened for additional studies.  For the grey literature, a search will be performed in Advanced Search - Google search engine. Google search requires creating several search strategies containing multiple combinations of search terms. Thirty-two unique search strategies were applied to Advanced Search - Google. Each search was repeated using a VPN with IP addresses based in the following countries: Canada, USA, France, Belgium, UK, and Australia. A comprehensive Internet search is impossible; thus, relying on the power of relevancy ranking within Google search engine, only the first five pages of each search’s hits (i.e., 50 results) will be reviewed, using the title and short descriptive text underneath. This number of pages was chosen to capture many of the most relevant hits while providing a volume feasible for screening. Potentially relevant records will be added to a file in Zotero© shared by the research team and then each source will be entered into an Excel spreadsheet for screening purposes

Methods

The proposed scoping review will be conducted in accordance with the JBI (Peters et al., 2020) and Levac et al. (2010) methodology for scoping reviews