Abstract
Engaging participants experiencing disabilities in all phases of research can lead to feasible study designs for research teams, improved study uptake, and more readily utilized findings. Unfortunately, many barriers persist for persons experiencing disabilities looking to participate in research processes focused on sport and exercise. While barriers to research participation exist at all stages of the research, research participation often begins with research recruitment, which invites participants to participate based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. The purpose of this project was to understand how researchers can make research study participation more appealing, feasible, and accessible for persons experiencing disabilities. We conducted a rapid review of the peer-reviewed literature, adhering to rapid review guidelines. An engagement team was formed with three community members experiencing disabilities who helped co-create the review protocol. Three library databases were searched: CINAHL, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science. Studies were screened by two reviewers. Included research studies (n=14) focused on community-based studies, interventions, or research reflections and included three disability groups (intellectual, physical, and sensory disabilities). A total of 26 recruitment strategies (e.g., actions to help promote recruitment success) were extracted and mapped onto participant, research team, institutional, and societal levels of the Social Ecological Model (SEM) and situated by barrier category (e.g., physical, attitudinal, systemic, expertise related). Identified strategies highlighted the importance of disability-specific training and flexibility for research teams, trust building with participants, and appropriate ethical policies. Findings will help improve recruitment efforts for engaging individuals experiencing disabilities in sport and exercise research.
