The Outcome of Exercise for Adults and Older Adults with Visual Impairment: A Scoping Review Protocol

Introduction: Exercise programs provide numerous health benefits, including improved physical fitness, psychosocial status, and sense of well-being. Previous research has identified a range of positive outcomes as a result of exercise for most populations; however, the current understanding of the exercise outcomes for adults from 18 to 65 years and older adults over 65 years with visual impairment is limited. Objective: The proposed scoping review aims to allow a better understanding of current exercise outcomes for adults (including older adults) with visual impairment. This protocol enhances the research quality and the transparency of the proposed scoping review. It pre-defines the objective and methods of the scoping review, including details of the criteria of inclusion and exclusion for evidence sources and the way the data will be identified, extracted, and presented. Inclusion criteria: Articles involving participants with visual impairment aged 18 and over will be the focus of the proposed scoping review. All English-language peer-reviewed studies with a focus on outcomes of exercise programs and interventions for adults with visual impairment, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods study designs, will be considered. In order to make the result more applicable for future research and practice, studies published from 2000 to present will be included, given consideration of the changing concept and format of exercise since 2000. The exercise-related programs and interventions to be included can be delivered via any format in any geographical area. Methods: The search strategy will aim to locate all eligible published studies in the following databases: Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL Complete, PsycInfo, AMED, and SPORTDiscus. Full text review will be undertaken of articles that meet criteria on initial review of title and abstract. Reference lists and citations of studies selected for full text review will be further reviewed to identify any additional studies that meet inclusion. Data from the selected studies will be extracted and tabulated based on the exercise and the key findings relevant to the research question. Findings from this scoping review will be presented as a summary of the data from the selected studies in a tabular form, which will categorize exercise outcomes and the corresponding exercise along with a narrative summary. Conclusion: It is expected that the results of this scoping review will enable a better understanding of exercise for adults with visual impairments and inform future exercise programs for adults with visual impairment.