Preventing the Transmission of COVID-19 in Older Adults Aged 60 Years and Above Living in Long-Term Care: Rapid Review Update

  1. Oluwaseun Egunsola
  2. Mark Hofmeister
  3. Laura E. Dowsett
  4. Tom Noseworthy
  5. Fiona Clement

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Abstract

Objectives: The objective of this study was to examine the effect of measures of control and management of COVID-19, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in adults 60 years or above living in long-term care facilities. This is an update of previous work done by Rios et al. Methods: A rapid review was conducted in accordance with the Rapid Review Guide for Health Policy and Systems Research. Literature search of databases MEDLINE, Cochrane library, and pre-print servers (biorxiv/medrxiv) was conducted from July 31, 2020 to October 9, 2020. EMBASE was searched from July 31, 2020 until October 18, 2020. Titles and abstracts from public archives were identified for screening using Gordon V. Cormack and Maura R. Grossmans Continuous Active Learning (CAL) tool, which uses supervised machine learning. Results: Five observational studies and one clinical practice guideline were identified. Infection prevention measures identified in this rapid review included: social distancing and isolation, personal protective equipment (PPE) use and hygiene practices, screening, training and staffing policies. The use of PPE, laboratory screening tests, sick pay to staff, self-confinement of staff within the LTCFs for 7 or more days, maintaining maximum resident occupancy, training and social distancing significantly reduced the prevalence of COVID-19 infection among residents and/or staff of LTCFs (p<0.05). Practices such as hiring of temporary staff, not assigning staff to care separately for infected and uninfected residents, inability to isolate sick residents and infrequent cleaning of communal areas significantly increased the prevalence of infection among residents and/or staff of LTCFs (p<0.05). Conclusion: The available studies are limited to only three countries despite the global nature of the disease. The majority of these studies showed that infection control measures such as favourable staffing policies, training, screening, social distancing, isolation and use of PPE significantly improved residents and staff related outcomes. More studies exploring the effects infection prevention and control practices in long term care facilities are required.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.11.05.21265759: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    3 A combination of comprehensive literature searches and automated search and citation screening was used to search MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane library, and pre-print servers (biorxiv/medrxiv).
    MEDLINE
    suggested: (MEDLINE, RRID:SCR_002185)
    Cochrane library
    suggested: (Cochrane Library, RRID:SCR_013000)
    The search for all sources for the previous review was conducted from inception up to July 31, 2020.2 The literature search for this update, for all sources except EMBASE, was conducted on October 9, 2020.
    EMBASE
    suggested: (EMBASE, RRID:SCR_001650)
    Full-text screening was completed by two reviewers using Microsoft Excel.
    Microsoft Excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.11.05.21265759v1 on medRxiv