The Resilient Child Indicators in Natural Disasters: A Systematic Review Protocol

Abstract

Annually, children as a major group are affected in disasters worldwide. Resilience terminology\ris appeared in disaster risk reduction to improve more attention paid on human ability instead of\rconcentration on his vulnerability. It seems that child resiliency may be the best approach to decrease\rthe vulnerability. Although there are lots of studies on resiliency, children resiliency in disasters seems\rto be a unique field to consider. The current systematic review aimed at synthesizing the evidence of\rthe children resiliency indicators in natural disasters to identify their capacity and improve their ability\ragainst the disaster consequences. The current systematic review was conducted on the children\rresiliency in articles regarding natural disaster situation that extracted indicators/factors to improve\rchildren resiliency in natural disasters. Four main electronic databases which cover such articles were\rsearched including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Pycinfo. Furthermore, experts were asked\rto identify verifiable grey literatures. EndNote software version X7 was used to manage searching the\rdatabases, screening duplications, and extracting irrelevant articles. Search strategy was defined by the\rcurrent review authors. Specific syntax was used for each main database. A period was considered to\rsearch the databases. The evaluation of the articles was conducted based on PICO defined according\rto the research question to include and exclude the articles. Moreover, the qualitative assessment\rand review instrument (QARI) checklist from JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewers’ Manual: 2014\redition) was used to assess the quality criteria. It is a quality context focused on human psychosocial\rbehavior with specific group called children, adolescents, teenagers, and youths, but the current\rsystematic review called them under eighteen-year-old children according to the definition of the\rUnited Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). On the other hand, the QARI\rdata extraction instrument was also used according to the research question.\rThe current systematic literature review determined the tangible criteria of child resiliency was\rvaluable for decision makers, community, researchers, families, and the people concerned about\rchildren and also disaster situations. In this way, in disaster situations they could evaluate the\rdifference between resilient children vs. non-resilient ones; the impacts are limited to the disaster, but\ralso long-time after the disaster.