Trial reportAnnals of family medicine2019
Effectiveness of Community-Links Practitioners in Areas of High Socioeconomic Deprivation.
Trial report in Annals of family medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effectiveness and strategies of social prescribing in Korea using a machine learning topic modeling.BMC health services research · 2025Pooled it
- The effectiveness of social prescribing in the management of long-term conditions in community-based adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical rehabilitation · 2024Pooled it
- Outcomes and instruments used in social prescribing: a modified umbrella review.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2024Pooled it
- Effectiveness of system navigation programs linking primary care with community-based health and social services: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2023Pooled it
- Non-pharmaceutical primary care interventions to improve mental health in deprived populations: a systematic review.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2023Pooled it
- Social prescribing outcomes: a mapping review of the evidence from 13 countries to identify key common outcomes.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- A realist synthesis of staff-based primary health care interventions addressing universal health coverage.Journal of global health · 2022Pooled it
- Can Social Prescribing Foster Individual and Community Well-Being? A Systematic Review of the Evidence.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- A Randomized Controlled Trial of Social Prescribing: Comparing a Comprehensive Navigation Model With Signposting.Annals of family medicine · 2026Trial
- Trial
- The We Can Quit2 Smoking Cessation Trial: Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination Following a Community-Based Participatory Research Approach.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Income Security Health Promotion: Addressing Patients' Unmet Income Needs in a Toronto Family Practice, a Qualitative Study.International journal of social determinants of health and health services · 2026Article
- Changes in healthcare use and cost associated with referrals to social prescribing link workers in England: a matched case-control cohort study.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Implementation and costs of a food insecurity resource navigation program for primary care patients with diabetes and hypertension in South Carolina.Preventive medicine reports · 2026Article
- Are participants with disability referred for social prescribing? Findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Impact of Food Insecurity Resource Navigation for Primary Care Patients with Diabetes and Hypertension: A Matched Cohort Study.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Models, implementation, and reported outcomes of social prescribing interventions: a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Impact of the rollout of the national social prescribing link worker programme on population outcomes: evidence from a repeated cross-sectional survey.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2025Article
- The dual impact of social prescribing: targeting social determinants to enhance quality of life in chronic conditions.BMC primary care · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo assess the effect of a primary care-based community-links practitioner (CLP) intervention on patients' quality of life and well-being.
methodsQuasi-experimental cluster-randomized controlled trial in socioeconomically deprived areas of Glasgow, Scotland. Adult patients (aged 18 years or older) referred to CLPs in 7 intervention practices were compared with a random sample of adult patients from 8 comparison practices at baseline and 9 months. PRIMARY OUTCOME: health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L, a standardized measure of self-reported health-related quality of life that assesses 5 dimensions at 5 levels of severity). SECONDARY OUTCOMES: well-being (Investigating Choice Experiments for the Preferences of Older People Capability Measure for Adults [ICECAP-A]), depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Depression [HADS-D]), anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Anxiety [HADS-A]), and self-reported exercise. Multilevel, multiregression analyses adjusted for baseline differences. Patients were not blinded to the intervention, but outcome analysis was masked.
resultsData were collected on 288 and 214 (74.3%) patients in the intervention practices at baseline and follow-up, respectively, and on 612 and 561 (92%) patients in the comparison practices. Intention-to-treat analysis found no differences between the 2 groups for any outcome. In subgroup analyses, patients who saw the CLP on 3 or more occasions (45% of those referred) had significant improvements in EQ-5D-5L, HADS-D, HADS-A, and exercise levels. There was a high positive correlation between CLP consultation rates and patient uptake of suggested community resources.
conclusionsWe were unable to prove the effectiveness of referral to CLPs based in primary care in deprived areas for improving patient outcomes. Future efforts to boost uptake and engagement could improve overall outcomes, although the apparent improvements in those who regularly saw the CLPs may be due to reverse causality. Further research is needed before wide-scale deployment of this approach.
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