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
Occupational Therapy for Musculoskeletal Conditions & Arthritis PSP
Please describe the scope of the PSP
The focus of the Occupational Therapy for Musculoskeletal Conditions & Arthritis PSP is on practice-based occupational therapy. Occupational therapy aims to enable people living with MSK conditions and arthritis to participate in daily activities and meaningful life roles at home, work, for leisure and socially, and to enhance well-being and quality of life. It involves the use of individualized assessment and customized interventions, such as splints (orthotics), assistive devices and strategies, to help people living with MSK conditions and arthritis develop, recover, or maintain engagement in activities they find meaningful. IMHA’s mandate includes a wide range of conditions related to bones, joints, muscles, connective tissue, skin as well as the mouth, teeth and craniofacial region. All of these conditions are within the scope of this project. The scope of the Occupational Therapy for Musculoskeletal Conditions & Arthritis Priority Setting Partnership will encompass:
- perspectives gathered from across Canada in English and French;
- needs and perspectives of people of any age with MSK conditions and arthritis who may have occupational performance issues as a result of their condition, and their caregivers;
- perspectives of people of any age with MSK conditions or arthritis accessing occupational therapy services and their caregivers about the services, information, assessments, interventions and outcomes provided by those services;
- perspectives reflective of the range of practice-based roles contributing to the delivery of occupational therapy services to people with MSK conditions and arthritis, such as occupational therapists and support personnel, and members of occupational therapy organizations.
The PSP will exclude from its scope questions about:
- occupational therapy practice outside Canada;
- services with significant competing or commercial interests, such as pharmaceutical or device manufacturing companies.
Please provide a brief overview of your approach to checking whether the questions were unanswered
Given the broad scope and timeframe of our PSP, we took a broad approach to checking uncertainties, identifying literature from systematic reviews, scoping reviews, guidelines, and current and previous trials. While we evaluated randomized controlled trials, we did not consider these as definitively answering a question.
We used TripDatabase Pro, which searches over 75 sources to find evidence from systematic reviews, evidence-based synopses, clinical guidelines, and regulatory guidance. Trip content includes international guidelines, e-textbooks, PubMed, PubMed Central, and Cochrane in addition to high-quality evidence-based medical information from sources such as BMJ, Lancet, JAMA, and NEJM. The PubMed content in Trip is updated every two weeks and other content is updated monthly.
Please list the type(s) of evidence you used to verify your questions as unanswered
- Systematic reviews
- Scoping reviews
- Clinical guidelines
- Position statements
- Large RCTs
- Unpublished, in progress registered trials and/or systematic reviews
Please list the sources that you searched in order to identify that evidence
- Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT) position statements
- The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (NICE)
- Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
- TripDatabase Pro
What search terms did you use?
Set 1 (Used always - matches definition of IMHA):
Musculoskeletal Diseases OR Skin Diseases OR Connective Tissue Diseases OR Mouth Diseases OR Tooth Diseases
Set 2 (Used always)
Occupational therapy OR occupational therap* (in document titles, abstracts or source title)
Set 3 (Used always - words to reflect the concepts or focus in the questions – searched in document titles and abstracts), e.g.
“self-management” or “self-care” or “self-efficacy”
“Access” or “accessibility”
“impact” or “effectiveness” or “outcome” or “management”
TripDatabase Pro (Used always):
- All secondary evidence (i.e., systematic reviews, guidelines, evidence-based synopses)
- Controlled trials
- Ongoing systematic reviews
- Ongoing clinical trials
Please describe the parameters of the search (eg time limits, excluded sources, country/language) and the rationale for any limitations
Eligibility criteria used for the inclusion of evidence was as follows:
- The search was limited to English.
- To ensure retrieval of the most recent literature, database results were restricted to the last 5 years (i.e., 2018 - 2023).
- However, Cochrane Reviews and NICE guidelines originally published earlier than 2018, but recently updated were included.
- Papers addressing the question but without an OT context or focus were excluded.
Names of individuals who undertook the evidence checking
Emma Guyonnet
On what date was the question verification process completed?
April 17th, 2023
Any other relevant information
N/A