Healthcare Associated Infections Priority Setting Partnership Question Verification Form

The purpose of this Question Verification Form is to enable Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs) to describe clearly how they checked that their questions were unanswered, before starting the interim prioritisation stage of the process.

The JLA requires PSPs to be transparent and accountable in defining their own scope and evidence checking process. This will enable researchers and other stakeholders to understand how individual PSPs decided that their questions were unanswered, and any limitations of their evidence checking.

Name of the PSP

Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAI)

Please describe the scope of the PSP

All aspects of HCAI including prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Please provide a brief overview of your approach to checking whether the questions were unanswered

Questions were considered unanswered when there were no recent high-quality systematic reviews, when high-quality systematic reviews concluded that further studies were necessary, or when the Steering Group considered that further research was required despite the conclusions of recent systematic reviews

Please list the type(s) of evidence you used to verify your questions as unanswered

Systematic reviews and expert opinion (Steering Group)

Please list the sources that you searched in order to identify that evidence

• Pubmed
• Cochrane
• DUETS

What search terms did you use?

For each uncertainty, the search terms differed, but broadly used the search terms with a systematic review filter

Please describe the parameters of the search (eg time limits, excluded sources, country/language) and the rationale for any limitations

• Time limits: Previous 5 years only
• Only systematic review were included. No other language, country, or any other restrictions

Names of individuals who undertook the evidence checking

On what date was the question verification process completed?

October 2017

Any other relevant information

Any other relevant information The verification was done only on the 50 questions that the Steering Group identified as uncertainties

Version 1.0.  Date 14th October 2019