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. 2025 May 20;20(5):e0324711.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0324711. eCollection 2025.

Grocery shopping as an outcome measure: A scoping review

Keith R Cole  1   2   3 , Sophie Minick  1   2 , Leslie F Davidson  4
Affiliations

Grocery shopping as an outcome measure: A scoping review

Keith R Cole et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Grocery shopping is a complex Instrumental Activity of Daily Living (IADL) requiring cognitive and physical components that can be used to assess functional performance. Real-world physical and cognitive demands of grocery shopping occur simultaneously; however, many existing outcome measures only include a single domain or subtask. The objective of this review is to examine how grocery shopping as a whole, or multiple simultaneous subtasks of grocery shopping, has been used as a functional outcomes measure.

Methods: Peer-reviewed manuscripts in the English language were retrieved from PubMed, Medline, Scopus, and Cochrane published on or before December 20, 2024. Articles were included if an outcome measure included multiple subtasks of grocery shopping and excluded if an outcome was related to only a single subtask of grocery shopping. Extracted data included Author(s), Publication Title, Publication Year, Study Location, Study population, Grocery Setting (Virtual, Real-World, Simulated, or Patient Reported Answers), Grocery-specific measure, and Grocery-Specific outcome results.

Results: Fifty-eight studies were included from 15 different countries. The most common populations studied were healthy adults (15) and psychiatric disorders (15). Common methods of assessment included patient-reported outcome measures (22), virtual reality (17), and physically simulated or real grocery shopping (20). Only three studies examined naturalistic, free-living grocery shopping. Outcomes were related to cognitive functioning (28), physical or motor impairments (23), or behavioral aspects of shopping (9).

Conclusions: This review provides critical insights into how grocery shopping has been adopted as a performance outcome measure across populations and testing environments. Despite the growing recognition of grocery shopping as a useful measure, gaps remain in the literature, especially related to a lack of studies that integrate cognitive and physical domains or explore its use in populations with combined cognitive and physical impairments.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow chart for screening procedures (Covidence).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Frequency of categories for each extracted data element.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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