National Care Service - national systems of social care in Nordic and Scandinavian countries: learning and evidence review

This rapid review presents research evidence and learning from Nordic and Scandinavian national systems of social care to inform the development of the National Care Service for Scotland.


Appendix 2: Search strategy

Database search terms

1. Denmark or Danish or Finland or Finnish or Norway or Norwegian or Sweden or Swedish or Scandinavia* or Nordic or Iceland* or Europe*) adj5 ("social care" or "social service*" or "social care service*" or "long-term care" or "adult care" or "care program*" or "model* of care" or "integrated care" or "joint working")).ti,ab.

2. (governance or funding or interface* or delivery or system* or experien* or barrier* or facilitator* or integrat* or structure* or "population outcome*" or "health care quality indicator*" or qualitative or "policy change*" or "hospital admission*" or discharge or readmission* or "health system* performance*" or inequal* or inequit* or "human rights" or access* or "user outcome*" or "person* outcome*" or "person-centred").ti,ab.

3. 1 and 2

4. limit 3 to (english language and yr="2010 -25 January 2022")

Databases searched: Medline, Embase, Proquest, Scopus and CINAHL. An additional amended search was undertaken in the Social Care Institute for Excellence ( SCIE) database
Database References retrieved
Medline 198
Embase 259
Proquest Public Health Database 86
SCOPUS 489
CINAHL 272
Social care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) First 500 references
Total 1804
Total (after Covidence deduplication) 1202

Grey literature (Google search):

The first 100 hits from Google for the following searches were retrieved and added to Sciwheel reference manager for an initial screen before being added to Covidence:

(Denmark | Danish) ("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care")

(Finland | Finnish) ("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care")

(Norway | Norwegian) ("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care")

(Sweden | Swedish) ("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care")

(Iceland) ("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care")

(Nordic | Scandinavian | Europe) ("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care")

("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care") site: who.int

("social care" | "social service" | "social care service" | "long-term care" "integrated care") site: eurohealthnet.eu

Inclusion/exclusion (PICOS):

Criteria: Population

Include:

  • Adults
  • Selected countries (Scandinavian and Nordic, including pan European)
  • Cross-country studies that include findings for selected countries

Exclude:

  • Children
  • Other countries
  • Dates – pre 2010

Criteria: Intervention

Include:

  • National social care structures including:
  • Legislation
  • Commissioning
  • Regulation
  • Improvement
  • Access
  • Care planning
  • Workforce development
  • Users experience if national level or linked to overarching care strategy.
  • Experts' views on national systems (opinions?)
  • Quantitative outcomes e.g. LTC and hospital admissions
  • Primary health care (if clear link with social care)
  • Findings from large care networks (Pan EU) (check with steering group if in scope)
  • Inequity of access to services (or different types of care services eg by SES)

Exclude:

  • Individual-level interventions
  • Community-level interventions
  • No link to national care structures in title or abstract (or aims/objectives)
  • Informal carers/unpaid carers/home care unless a national level focus

Criteria: Comparison

Include: n/a

Exclude: n/a

Criteria: Outcomes

Exclude:

  • No outcome (population or person-centred)
  • No quantitative analysis (e.g. hospital admission/discharge)

Criteria: Study design

Include:

  • As per RQs
  • Studies of national policies (policy analysis)
  • Scoping reviews (but new ones could be useful – include if methods, check references)

Exclude:

  • No methods described
  • Editorial/opinion piece
  • Conference paper
  • Protocols
  • Methods papers (e.g. validation of tools)
  • Descriptive trends

Contact

Email: SWStat@gov.scot

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