Understanding how children and young people with disabilities experience COVID-19 and humanitarian emergencies in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

Introduction: People with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and there is a need to understand the diversity of experience globally to plan and implement responses. The experience of children and young people with disabilities is often overlooked as research focuses on younger children or adults, and they are not often engaged in the design of research methods to capture their experience. As part of a research project to develop participatory methods with children and young people with disabilities in rural Nepal to research their experience of COVID-19 (PARDAN), we sought to map the literature about experiences of children and young people with disabilities in emergency and COVID-19 contexts, and describe the methods used. This review will inform the development of our methods and will help identify gaps in the literature. / Methods: We will use Arksey and O’Malley’s (1) and Levac et al’s (2) framework to search for grey and published literature. We will search Scopus, Web of Science, ASSIA, Jstor, Source, Google Scholar, Academia.edu, Researchgate, and Google. We will also search websites of organisations working in emergencies such as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Humanity and Inclusion (HI), CBM International, International Disability Alliance (IDA), Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), and National Federation of the Disabled Nepal (NFDN). We will approach our advisory committee and personal contacts in disabled persons organisations in the global south to help us locate additional relevant grey literature. Predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria will be applied by five reviewers to determine study eligibility. Studies published in English and Nepali and between May 2011 and May 2021 will be reviewed. Methods and findings from literature will be extracted and a descriptive summary will be presented to an advisory committee of disabled persons organisations in Nepal. / Discussion: Through this review we will identify research gaps and develop implications of our findings which will be presented in a webinar and in publications. The review will be an important resource for those seeking to conduct research about children and young people with disabilities and will inform a global inclusive response to the pandemic which includes the perspectives of children and young people