Abstract
Background Little is known about the routine use of PREMs and PROMs to improve experience and outcomes in paediatric clinical settings. Scoping reviews are useful to map existing knowledge, particularly in broad and quickly evolving areas, however they can be time consuming. Automated methods to handle and analyse text data may be useful to efficiently map changes over time.
Aims To use automated techniques to understand how PROMs and PREMs are used in routine hospital care of children and young people, anchored to two time periods of manual literature searches.
Methods Key search terms were developed and seven databases searched. The initial search period was 1.1.2008 – 21.2.2021; updated search 22.2.2021 – 4.4.2023. Manual reviews were initially performed using Covidence. In total, 177 studies were included in the final manual analysis across the two periods. Text mining methods were used to characterise frequently occurring terms in abstracts. Qualitative comparisons were made between the ranking of terms in original and updated searches, using R.
Results Across all included studies, ‘implementation’, ‘psychosocial’, ‘pain’, ‘electronic’, ‘screen’ and ‘assessment’ were amongst the most frequently reported terms. However, the frequency ranking of terms in the studies obtained from 2021, compared to the 2023 search differed. For example, ‘screen’ and ‘KLIK’ had a lower ranking in the 2023 vs. 2021 search, whereas terms including ‘pain’ and ‘symptom’ ranked higher in 2023. Some words including ‘implementation’ stayed consistent.
Conclusions The use of PROMs and PREMs in the routine care of children and young people is an evolving field, with a strong focus on implementation and, increasingly, capturing symptoms such as pain. We show how text mining methods may make scoping reviews more efficient, allowing researchers and clinical teams to keep abreast of literature trends.
Acknowledgements for funding or support Work supported by a Clinical Informatics Research Programme PhD studentship funded by GOSH Children’s Charity (Award VS0618).
