The Impact of Digital Technology on the Physical Health of Older Workers: Protocol for a Scoping Review (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Digital technologies have penetrated most workplaces. However, it is unclear how such digital technologies affect the physical health of older workers. OBJECTIVE This scoping review aims to examine and summarize the evidence from scientific literature concerning the impact of digitalization and the utilization of digital tools on the physical health of older workers. METHODS This scoping review will be conducted following recommendations outlined by Levac et al. and adhere to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines for reporting. Peer-reviewed articles written in English will be searched in the following databases: MEDLINE, Cochrane, Proquest, Web of Science, Scopus, APA PsycInfo and ERIH PLUS. The web-based systematic review platform COVIDENCE will be used to create a data extraction template. It will cover the following items: study and participant characteristics, health measures, digital tool characteristics and usage, research findings, and policy implications. Following the Population, Concept, and Context (PCC) framework, our review will focus on studies involving older workers aged 50 years or above, any form of digitalization (including teleworking and the use of digital tools at work) and how digitalization affects physical health (such as vision loss, musculoskeletal disorders, migraine). Studies that focus only on mental health will be excluded. Study selection based on title and abstract screening (first stage), full-text review (second stage) and data extraction (third stage) will be performed by a group of researchers, whereby each article will be revised by at least two people. Any conflict regarding the inclusion or exclusion of a study and the data extraction will be solved by discussion between the researchers who evaluated the papers; a third researcher will be involved if consensus is not reached. RESULTS A preliminary search of MEDLINE, Epistemonikos, Cochrane, Prospero and JBI Evidence Synthesis was conducted and no current or underway systematic reviews or scoping reviews on the topic were identified. The results of the study are expected in April 2025. CONCLUSIONS Our scoping review will seek to provide an overview of the available evidence and identification of research gaps regarding the effect of digitalization and the use of digital tools in the work environment on the physical health of older workers.