HEALTH EVIDENCE NETWORK SYNTHESIS REPORT
WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE ON THE ROLE OF THE ARTS IN IMPROVING HEALTH AND WELL-BEING? A SCOPING REVIEW
ANNEX 1. SEARCH STRATEGY Scoping review A scoping review aims to map the existing literature in a field and provides an opportunity to identify key concepts, gaps in the research, and types and sources of evidence to inform practice, policy-making and research (1). However, unlike systematic reviews, scoping reviews do not have to pre-specify either study designs or precise inclusion/exclusion criteria. Further, results from scoping reviews are ordinarily narrative and descriptive with the aim of providing an overview, rather than involving synthesis or judging the quality of individual studies (1,2). A scoping review was felt to be an appropriate approach given that (i) this report took a broad overview, exploring diverse areas of arts and health research, so undertaking multiple full systematic reviews was beyond the scope of this project; (ii) research on this topic is heterogeneous in its design, so it was not desirable to restrict the literature by pre-specifying particular methodologies; and (iii) this report was policy directed, which is a common aim in conducting a scoping review.
Databases and websites Searches were undertaken in both English and Russian with no geographical limitation using databases, including the Cochrane Library and PubMed and relevant journals for the period from January 2000 to May 2019. Thorough hand-searches included recent citations of key texts. Although some grey literature is included here, grey literature is covered more thoroughly in the report Creative Health (3).
Search terms The literature search was focused on any studies involving human participants who had engaged in any arts activity, following the definition provided in section 1.1.1, with the research discussing any outcome measure relating to the promotion, prevention, treatment or determinant of mental or physical health. Studies were excluded if: they were animal studies; they focused exclusively on architecture or design (which constitutes a large literature beyond that discussed here);
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