PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kiely, Bridget
AU  - Croke, Aisling
AU  - O'Shea, Muireann
AU  - Boland, Fiona
AU  - O'Shea, Eamon
AU  - Connolly, Deirdre
AU  - Smith, Susan M
TI  - Effect of social prescribing link workers on health outcomes and costs for adults in primary care and community settings: a systematic review
AID  - 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-062951
DP  - 2022 Oct 01
TA  - BMJ Open
PG  - e062951
VI  - 12
IP  - 10
4099  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/10/e062951.short
4100  - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/10/e062951.full
SO  - BMJ Open2022 Oct 01; 12
AB  - Objectives To establish the evidence base for the effects on health outcomes and costs of social prescribing link workers (non-health or social care professionals who connect people to community resources) for people in community settings focusing on people experiencing multimorbidity and social deprivation.Design Systematic review and narrative synthesis using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.Data sources Cochrane Database, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trials Register, CINAHL, Embase, Global Health, PubMed/MEDLINE, PsycInfo, LILACS, Web of Science and grey literature were searched up to 31 July 2021. A forward citation search was completed on 9 June 2022.Eligibility criteria Controlled trials meeting the Cochrane Effectiveness of Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) guidance on eligible study designs assessing the effect of social prescribing link workers for adults in community settings on any outcomes. No language restrictions were applied.Data extraction and synthesis Two independent reviewers extracted data, evaluated study quality using the Cochrane EPOC risk of bias tool and judged certainty of the evidence. Results were synthesised narratively.Results Eight studies (n=6500 participants), with five randomised controlled trials at low risk of bias and three controlled before–after studies at high risk of bias, were included. Four included participants experiencing multimorbidity and social deprivation. Four (n=2186) reported no impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Four (n=1924) reported mental health outcomes with three reporting no impact. Two US studies found improved ratings of high-quality care and reduced hospitalisations for people with multimorbidity experiencing deprivation. No cost-effectiveness analyses were identified. The certainty of the evidence was low or very low.Conclusions There is an absence of evidence for social prescribing link workers. Policymakers should note this and support evaluation of current programmes before mainstreaming.PROSPERO registration number CRD42019134737.Data are available in a public, open access repository. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. Supplementary data are available on the Open Science Framework: Kiely B. (2022, July 19). Effect of social prescribing link workers on health outcomes and costs for adults in primary care and community settings: a systematic review. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/G2Y4C. This project contains the following supplementary data: Appendix 1: PRISMA checklist for ‘A systematic review of the effectiveness of link workers providing social prescribing on health outcomes and costs for adults in primary care and community settings.’ Appendix 2: Full Search Strategy and Results. Appendix 3: GRIPP 2 Form for PPI. Appendix 4: Risk of Bias tables. Appendix 5: GRADE Assessment Sheets. Appendix 6: All outcomes table. Data are available under the terms of the CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.