TranslateThe 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
Seniors’ Health (Alberta)
Please describe the scope of the PSP
This PSP was purposefully inclusive of issues that affect seniors’ health.
This decision was made in recognition that there are many issues that impact the health and wellbeing of seniors that do not arise directly from a specific treatment or healthcare encounter.
Some topics, however, were felt to be beyond the scope of this PSP, including social determinants of health, health system funding, and personal lifestyle decision-making.
The determination made by the Steering Committee following discussion and was influenced by factors such as whether the topic would be of-interest to health research funders or would have searchable evidence.
Please provide a brief overview of your approach to verifying the uncertainty of your questions
We used the expertise of Knowledge Resource Services librarians (our organizational resource) to craft the search terms and conduct the evidence search to see if there are any systematic reviews or guidelines that answered our question.
After a list of reviews and guidelines was found, the evidence was screened to assess relevance and degree to which the literature answered the uncertainty.
Please list the type(s) of evidence you used to verify your questions as unanswered
- Systematic reviews and guidelines
Please list the sources that you searched in order to identify that evidence
- Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for reviews
- Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) for guidelines
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for guidelines
What search terms did you use?
The search process for this project was complex and incorporated several different strategies.
The search for some uncertainties was difficult due to the nature of some summary questions.
We first limited the literature search to within the target population with search terms such as “geriatric,” “older adults,” “elderly,” “seniors,” and “older people.” Then we added additional search terms according on the context of each of the 101 summary questions we sought to verify. For example, for questions relating to dementia we added “dementia,” and “cognitive impairment.”
Please describe the parameters of the search (eg time limits, excluded sources, country/language) and the rationale for any limitations
We limited timeframe to 2009 onward and we used systematic reviews from Cochrane and guidelines from SIGN and NICE. These limitations were necessary for the human resources and timeline of the project.
Names of individuals who undertook the evidence checking
- Billy Zhao
- Meenakshi Kashyap
- Ashley Leonard
- Joycelyn Jaca
- Nicole Loroff
On what date was the question verification process completed?
19 July 2018
Any other relevant information
None