Outputs & Publications

The project aimed to rapidly identify priority topic uncertainties as a first step to identify future systematic review questions of pertinence to key international faecal incontinence (FI) stakeholders (patients, carers, healthcare professionals, policy makers and voluntary, community or social enterprise representatives). The paper aim is to share our methods, experience and learning with other groups […]

We performed a systematic review of diagnostic test accuracy with the objective to assess the diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive or minimally invasive autopsy techniques in deaths under 1 year of age. MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), the Cochrane Library, Scopus and grey literature sources were searched from inception to November 2021. Studies were included if […]

New technologies continue to revolutionise the world as we have known it. There is no reason to think that early childhood will be spared this revolution. All indications are that technology companies, families, carers, and the education sector will continue to incorporate innovation into the lives of babies and young children around the globe. And yet the topic and the […]

The Systematic Review (SR) Toolbox was developed in 2014 to collate tools that can be used to support the systematic review process but the breadth of evidence synthesis methodologies has expanded greatly since its inception. We updated the SR Toolbox in 2022 to reflect these changes and also briefly analysed included tools and guidance to […]

Current methodologies for designing search strategies rely heavily on the knowledge and expertise of information specialists. Yet, the volume and complexity of scientific literature is overwhelming for even the most experienced information specialists, making it difficult to produce robust search strategies for complex systematic reviews. In this case study, we aimed to assess and describe […]

In this paper, horizon scanning techniques were used to systematically identify health technologies related to faecal incontinence (FI) in active development using the NIHR Innovation Observatory’s ScanMedicine database. We found that most late-stage trials focused on bowel management strategies, followed by strategies related to bladder and bowel dysfunction. There was limited evidence found for new […]

Faecal incontinence (FI) has a high prevalence in both community and residential settings. Historically, there has been a lack of priority setting recommendations for FI. Our priority setting exercise for Cochrane Incontinence, used an evidence gap map to provide a visual overview of emerging trial evidence; existing systematic review-level evidence and FI stakeholder topic uncertainties […]

There is a globally recognised need for point-of-care testing and rapid identification of UTIs. Current ‘gold standard’ urine culture diagnostics take hours to yield results, and there remains an unmet need for accurate diagnostics within the elderly population, where UTIs are common and diagnosis is particularly complex. Moreover, evidence raises concerns about the certainty of […]

Following a request from the AMR Programme Board and the AMR Diagnostic Programme Board, the Innovation Observatory sought to undertake horizon scanning activities for Respiratory Tract Infection (RTI) technologies and to identify the pipeline of development, key players, opportunities and challenges in the field. The findings of that horizon scan were summarised into the accompanying […]