The increasing incidence of frailty is a health and social care challenge. Social prescription is advocated
as an important approach to allow health professionals to link patients with sources of support in the
community. This study aimed to determine the current evidence on the effectiveness of social
prescribing programmes to delay ...
The increasing incidence of frailty is a health and social care challenge. Social prescription is advocated
as an important approach to allow health professionals to link patients with sources of support in the
community. This study aimed to determine the current evidence on the effectiveness of social
prescribing programmes to delay or reduce frailty in frail older adults living in the community. A
systematic literature review of published (DARE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, MEDLINE,
EMBASE, CINAHL, NICE and SCIE, NHS Economic Evaluation Database) and unpublished databases
(OpenGrey; WHO Clinical Trial Registry; ClinicalTrials.gov) were searched to July 2019. Studies were
eligible if they reported health, social or economic outcomes on social prescribing, community
referral, referral schemes, wellbeing programmes or interventions when a non-health link worker was
the intervention provider to people who are frail living in the community. 1079 unique studies were
screened for eligibility. No papers were eligible. There is therefore a paucity of evidence reporting the
effectiveness of social prescribing programmes for frail older adults living in the community. Given
that frailty is a clinical priority and social prescribing is considered a key future direction in the
provision of community care, this is a major limitation.