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Category: Project

Description: Background: The varied use of the term “disability” in the scientific literature makes it challenging to conduct systematic searches and reviews of health issues among people with disability. Given these challenges, utilizing general disability search terms, instead of condition-specific search terms, has been put forward as an efficient and effective way to ensure a broad capture of the literature related to disability when conducting a systematic search. Objectives: This study evaluates the utility of general disability terms, as opposed to condition-specific terms, in the context of systematically searching for sources related to disability, and in this case, opioid use. Methods: Systematic searches were conducted utilizing three different databases (i.e., Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO). An initial search of sources mentioning opioids and disability was conducted utilizing the general search terms recommended by Walsh et al.2 The results of this search were then compared to those of each of the 16 condition-specific searches. The proportion of unique sources from each condition-specific search that overlapped with the general search were assessed. Results: There was very little overlap between the sources captured using condition-specific search terms and the sources captured utilizing the general search terms. The highest amount of overlap was for spinal muscular atrophy at 33.3%, with the overall median proportion of overlap being 13.4% (mean = 15.7%; SD = 11.7%). Conclusions: With a systematic search for manuscripts about disability associated with opioid use as an example, condition-specific search terms capture a large proportion of sources not captured using general disability search terms. Disability researchers should be aware of pitfalls using general terminology and the importance of using disability-specific search terms, depending on the focus of the search. Implications for disability-focused systematic searches are discussed.