Cystic fibrosis research priorities refresh 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

Cystic fibrosis research priorities refresh

Please describe the scope of the PSP

The aim of the PSP was to identify which of the 2017 top twenty research questions were still priorities for research and to identify any new questions.

Treatment for CF has undergone a lot of change over the last five years with the introduction of potentially life changing modulator therapies. We were interested to find out if there were new questions relating to this change and covered the areas of current treatment, future treatments and epidemiological questions relating to CF treatment.

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

We ran searches of electronic databases and for each research question we scanned the results to see if there was a systematic review relating to that topic.

This information was then distributed amongst the steering group to ensure we had interpreted the evidence correctly and to make sure we hadn’t missed key documents.

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

Cochrane reviews, systematic reviews, guidelines, evidence summaries.

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

Cochrane database of systematic reviews
Medline
Embase
PubMed
CF Trust
CF Foundation
European Cystic Fibrosis Society (ECFS)
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

What search terms did you use?

Cystic fibrosis
Standardised SIGN search criteria to identify systematic reviews

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

Time period 2017 to current - we have previously published a review of gaps in the evidence using the same search strategies and the searches ran to May 2017.
English language only

Names of individuals who undertook the evidence checking

Nicola Rowbotham
Sherie Smith
Management team and steering group members (sense checking).

On what date was the question verification process completed?

September 2022

Any other relevant information

None