Mapping the focus of research conducted with adults with cerebral palsy: an overview of systematic reviews

Abstract

Purpose

To map research conducted with adults with cerebral palsy (CP) to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to understand the array of research available, identify key clinical messages and inform future research.

Materials and methods

An overview of systematic reviews was conducted. Comprehensive searches (to December 2021) were conducted in PsycINFO, Web of Science, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane, JBI, and EMBASE. Eligible studies were systematic reviews that included primary studies of adults with CP. Included reviews were assessed for study quality and mapped to the ICF components and chapters. A narrative synthesis of commonly reported outcomes within the component/s and chapter/s was conducted.

Results

All 24 included reviews were published since 2010. Thirteen focused on body functions: movement related functions and cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Although nine reviews focused on gait and mobility, considerable overlap of included studies limited the volume of evidence and variability in review quality limited generalisability of findings.

Conclusions

Research involving adults with CP is growing; however, this overview of reviews found a predominant focus on mobility and gait. Future research, informed by consumer priorities, is needed to address a broader range of key health and participation outcomes.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Fitness, mobility, and gait were the most common research topics found in these systematic reviews suggesting a narrow research focus in adults with CP.

• There are significant gaps in our knowledge to inform clinical messages for practice about broad long-term outcomes of CP and how best to support their activity performance and participation.

• There is very limited evidence with which to guide and support rehabilitation professionals working in this field.

Keywords:

• Systematic review
• cerebral palsy
• adult
• developmental
• International Classification of Functioning
• Disability and Health

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

Osman Kuyucak and Lukas Clausen conducted this work as part of their Master of Social Work degrees, undertaken in the Melbourne School of Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. The authors thank Professor Prue Morgan for her feedback on the draft of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors have stated that they had no interests which might be perceived as posing a conflict or bias.

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted as part of the work of the Centre of Research Excellence: CP-ACHIEVE funded by the NHMRC (Grant ID: APP1171758), in which Christine Imms and Lyndal Hickey are investigators.