The global burden of malnutrition is compounded by the challenges of obesity and sarcopenia, a combination known as sarcopenic obesity. This condition, defined by increased fat mass alongside declining muscle mass and function, poses significant health risks, including metabolic dysregulation and cardiovascular complications. Despite its growing prevalence and clinical importance, significant gaps remain regarding the application of e-health strategies to address sarcopenic obesity. This scoping review aims to map the current evidence on the use of e-health in addressing sarcopenic obesity in adults with overweight or obesity, identify barriers and facilitators to its implementation, and highlight areas for future research.

The scoping review will be conducted in accordance with established methodological framework by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), employing a comprehensive three-step search strategy across multiple databases and grey literature sources, including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, CINAHL, Web of Science and Scopus. The inclusion criteria, framed by the Population-Concept-Context (PCC) framework, will focus on studies involving adults with sarcopenic obesity and interventions using e-health approaches in various healthcare contexts. A data extraction form will be used to guide the data extraction. Findings will be synthesised narratively and in tabular form, comprehensively mapping the current evidence and identifying key areas for future research.

Ethical approval is not required as the review analyses publicly available data. Findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at international conferences and scientific forums. The review will offer insights into e-health integration in sarcopenic obesity management, informing clinical practice, policy development and interdisciplinary collaboration.

This scoping review was registered with the Open Science Framework registry on 17 September 2024 (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9ND5A).

Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for adolescents is a global public health concern. Access to SRH information and services regarding contraception is necessary, particularly in underserved regions, such as the French overseas territories of Reunion Island and Guadeloupe, where indicators for teenage pregnancy and abortion are significantly high. This study protocol describes the methodology to be used to assess the feasibility of a peer-led contraception education programme for high school students using social media.

A multicentre, exploratory sequential mixed-methods with a pre-post design, prospective study is being conducted in Guadeloupe and on Reunion Island. The qualitative component started on 31 May 2025, and the study will continue until 30 June 2026. Participants will be aged 15 to 19 years and will attend high school. In Phase 1, focus groups will explore the adolescents’ perceptions of peer influencers in contraceptive education and their suggestions for organising a prevention programme on social media. These findings will directly inform the intervention in Phase 3. At this stage of this phase, peer influencers will also be identified. Phase 2 will train selected peer educators in SHR, digital content creation to prepare them for intervention design and delivery. Phase 3 consists of the co-construction, implementation and evaluation of the intervention. Outcomes will include feasibility, acceptability, adoption, fidelity and exploratory effectiveness. The primary outcome will be peer engagement defined as the completion of at least 70% of the planned educational tasks.

This study has received ethical approval from the Comité de Protection des Personnes under RIPH3 (ID-RCB: 2025-A00358-41) and will follow the French ethical standards for low-intervention research. Results will be shared in scientific publications and with participating schools.

NCT06943209.

Most patients receive behavioural healthcare (BH) in a primary care setting, yet much of the BH research was not developed to account for eventual implementation. Areas of research and intervention that are considered priorities to patients may be absent from our existing knowledge base. Engaging the community in the research process can facilitate translation and uptake. A key strategy for community engagement is to employ a Community Advisory Board (CAB). CABs can assist in a number of research processes, including guiding research questions to fit the priorities of the community and creating research materials that are tailored to the patient population and healthcare setting. There is variability in practices and reporting standards for CABs. The field would benefit from a summary of the state of the current literature on CAB utilisation for BH research in primary care. To fill this gap, we will conduct a scoping review to answer the question, ‘What is known about the use of CABs in behavioural health studies in primary care?’.

We will use the guidelines for scoping reviews outlined by Arksey and O’Malley: (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) study selection; (4) charting the data and (5) collating, summarising and reporting the results. Our reporting of the results will be guided by the Arnos and colleagues Toolkit for Project-Based Community Advisory Boards, a set of practical guidelines for employing a CAB. To this end, we will report on how well CABs currently employed in BH primary care research match existing guidelines and what gaps need to be filled by future research.

This review does not require ethics board approval, as no patient data will be collected. We will disseminate findings primarily through journal publications and conference presentations.

This scoping review protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/pa3rz/?view_only=31c558eb395a4a9482ee9c5b57ca1c4c)

Hospital falls persist as a major threat to patient safety. This study aimed to develop an interprofessional reference standard to prevent, manage and report hospital falls.

A Delphi consensus methodology, informed by the Conducting and Reporting Delphi Studies guideline, was used to design the reference standard. An interprofessional expert panel (n=47) of health professionals, researchers, policymakers and consumers participated in three Delphi rounds. Following the review of clinical guidelines, an e-Delphi survey was developed and piloted to derive 60 initial items for the standard. Two iterative rounds of e-Delphi surveys were distributed via Research Electronic Data Capture and included free-text questions and 9-point Likert scales. An online consensus meeting followed, to ratify the final standard.

In the first Delphi round, there was over 80% agreement for 44/60 items to be included in the reference standard. This increased to 48/60 items in Round 2. At the final consensus meeting, 12 items still did not reach consensus for inclusion and one was added, yielding 49 items. Items that replicated text according to falls with injury/without injury were combined, resulting in 42 items in the final reference standard. Agreed items included: (1) brief screening of falls risk on hospital admission; (2) comprehensive falls assessment for inpatients who are older, frailer or have complex conditions; (3) single interventions (such as environmental adaptations and exercise); (4) multifactorial interventions; (5) education of patients, families and staff; (6) optimising local falls hospital policies, procedures and leadership capability; (7) optimising documentation and reporting; (8) improving accreditation processes; (9) workforce redesign to augment falls education. Items that did not reach agreement (n=12) pertained to alarms, bed rails, grip socks, artificial intelligence, volunteers and care bundles.

This new reference standard provides a checklist for staff, patients, managers and policymakers to reduce unwanted variations in prevention, management and reporting of hospital falls.

ANZCTR 386960

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disease with a rising incidence and prevalence. Patients with Parkinson’s disease may receive antipsychotics, for example, due to Parkinson’s disease psychosis. Parkinson’s disease psychosis is characterised by visual hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms. To date, no systematic review has evaluated the effects of antipsychotics in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, this review aims to assess the beneficial and harmful effects of antipsychotics for Parkinson’s disease.

This is a protocol for a systematic review. A search specialist will perform a search in major medical databases (eg, MEDLINE (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online), EMBASE (Excerpta Medica database), CENTRAL (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials)) and clinical trial registries. Published and unpublished randomised clinical trials comparing antipsychotics to any control (placebo, standard care or other antipsychotics) in patients with Parkinson’s disease will be included. Two review authors will independently extract data and conduct risk of bias assessments with the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool—V.2. Primary outcomes will be all-cause mortality, serious adverse events and significant falls. Secondary outcomes will be hospitalisations, non-serious adverse events, Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale total score and psychotic symptoms using any valid symptom scale. Data will be synthesised by aggregate meta-analysis, trial sequential analysis and network meta-analysis. Several subgroup analyses are planned. An eight-step procedure will be used to assess if the thresholds for clinical significance are crossed, and the certainty of the evidence will be assessed by GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluations) and CiNeMA (Confidence in Network Meta-Analysis) approach.

This protocol does not include results, and ethics approval is not required for the project. The findings from the systematic review will be published in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.

PROSPERO ID: CRD42025633985. Available from https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42025633985.

The objective of this scoping review is to map and synthesise existing literature on interventions aimed at promoting healthy screen use among adolescents. This review identifies the types, functions and settings of interventions, explores the diversity of targeted outcomes and highlights equity considerations and research gaps.

We conducted a scoping review in accordance with the Arksey and O’Malley framework and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines.

We systematically searched Medline, PsycINFO and ERIC from January 2013 to June 2024. Reference lists of included studies were also manually screened.

We included peer-reviewed experimental, quasi-experimental, observational and qualitative studies reporting on interventions designed to promote healthy screen use among adolescents aged 10–19 years.

One author extracted data using a structured charting form, and a second author verified all entries. Results were synthesised descriptively across key themes including target populations, theoretical frameworks, intervention components and reported outcomes.

From 6433 records, we identified 93 articles on 81 interventions, mainly conducted in high school settings in the USA and Australia. Most examined short-term interventions targeting recreational screen time. Outcomes included media literacy, cyberbullying, internet and gaming addiction, safe internet use, social media use and mental and sexual health. Seventy-eight per cent of interventions attempted to educate adolescents, while 34% offered training activities (eg, educational sessions to elevate risk awareness and skill-based training to enhance digital literacy and self-regulation). Interventions targeting external influences were used less frequently. About 20% of studies showed no statistically significant findings, highlighting the need to promote evidence-based interventions.

This review identifies a need for broader, multilevel strategies that account for contextual factors and social determinants in influencing screen use and its related health issues. Future research should explore long-term effectiveness while examining the potential moderating and mediating effects of social determinants. Equity considerations were not a primary focus of most interventions, underscoring an important gap in this literature. Future interventions could incorporate equity-focused design and evaluation to ensure they respond to the needs of diverse adolescent populations.

Many cancer treatments can result in reduced fertility, impacting survivors’ opportunities for biological parenthood. Fertility preservation (FP) methods for boys and young men, such as cryopreservation of testicular tissue or sperm, offer hope but are currently underused among young male patients with cancer. Despite guidelines recommending early discussion of fertility implications, many newly diagnosed males do not receive FP counselling or referral to fertility services. Male cancer survivors face a higher likelihood of infertility than their peers, yet focused FP decision-making support is lacking. This study aims to address this gap by developing and evaluating the first dedicated patient decision aid (PtDA) for boys and young male patients with cancer aged 11–25 years old, to help them make informed FP decisions before receiving cancer treatment.

The current study follows a multistage process: developing the PtDA, alpha testing for acceptability with former patients, parents and healthcare professionals, and beta testing in clinical settings to ensure effective integration into routine care. Using a combination of interviews and questionnaire data, this research will assess the PtDA’s acceptability and impact on decision-making.

This study has been prospectively registered on the Research Registry (10273). Ethics approval has been obtained from Leeds Beckett University and the National Health Service/Health Research Authority before undertaking data collection. The final resource will be disseminated widely and made freely available online via our dedicated Cancer, Fertility and Me website, for use in clinical and research practice.

Latin American countries have long struggled with socioeconomic inequalities and health equity. In 2007, Ecuador implemented a health reform to address these issues by making public health services free, coordinating finances between subsystems and increasing the state’s health budget. This study evaluates whether Ecuador’s health system reform (2007–2017) reduced out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending, catastrophic health spending (CHS) and socioeconomic inequalities in CHS.

Cross-sectional study.

Secondary data available of households from the 2006 and 2014 National Living Standards Measurement surveys.

Descriptive statistics (means and medians) and log-binomial regression were applied to assess prevalence of OOP and socioeconomic inequalities (residence, region, health insurance status and wealth) in catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) for each period and over time.

Overall, there was a significant reduction of 14% points in the proportion of households with OOP healthcare expenditure. The prevalence of CHE decreased from 17% to 10% and within each socioeconomic group over time. Significant reductions in relative risk were observed in all socioeconomic variables. The inequality in CHE decreased significantly in households placed in rural areas (relative difference (RD): 0.88; 95% CI: 0.79 to 0.97) and poorest (RD: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.69 to 0.97); however, it increased within regions (RD: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.44 to 0.76) and for uninsured households (RD: 1.39; 95% CI: 0.95 to 2.04).

This study suggests that recent health reform effectively reduced OOP healthcare expenditure, CHE and some socioeconomic inequalities. Future reforms should further invest in key areas, expand health insurance for the most disadvantaged and monitor progress towards universal health coverage to address persistent inequalities.

This study aimed to (1) assess Lumos data quality, a New South Wales (NSW) statewide linked health data asset; and (2) determine sociodemographic variation in health service utilisation of general practice, emergency department and admitted services.

A retrospective cohort study using Lumos, a linked health data asset.

A representative statewide sample population of NSW, Australia.

People residing within NSW with an electronic health record at a Lumos participating general practice between January 2010 and June 2023.

Data quality indicators of Lumos including completeness, representativeness against NSW population data, consistency and timeliness. Furthermore, variation in general practice visits, emergency department presentations and hospital admission rates stratified by age, sex, rurality and Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD)—a measure of socioeconomic status used in Australia, where lower values represent greater relative disadvantage across a range of metrics such as education and income.

At the time of analysis, Lumos included records from 5.2 million unique patients, representing half (49.7%) of the NSW resident population. Limiting data to 2022, the Lumos population distribution broadly aligned with the 2021 Census except for IRSD quintile four and five which were under-represented (15.0% vs 20.4% (standardised difference –0.14)), and over-represented (29.7% vs 19.9% (standardised difference 0.23)), respectively. Age and greater relative disadvantage were associated with higher rates of general practice visits and hospital admissions. Greater relative disadvantage was also associated with higher rates of emergency department presentations.

Lumos’s ability to overcome historical limitations of separately managed health data in Australia and its demonstrated data quality present an opportunity to enhance health system policy and planning in NSW. The variation in service utilisation across primary and tertiary care by population and geography apparent in Lumos reinforces the need for tailored service planning.

High-quality clinical practice guidelines and hospital standards on falls prevention and management now exist, yet their implementation into clinical practice is variable. Insights from consumers could help to guide the development of a process to improve the implementation of falls prevention and management, particularly in rehabilitation hospitals where fall rates are high.

A qualitative descriptive study will incorporate semistructured interviews and focus groups to explore the perspectives of hospital consumers on how hospital falls prevention evidence can best be implemented into rehabilitation practice. Thematic analysis of the data will be conducted in NVivo using a six-phase thematic coding process guided by Braun and Clarke. Evaluation and synthesis of the data will also follow the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist. Consideration of the results from the interviews and focus groups will provide insights into the views of people with lived experience of hospitalisation and falls. Thematic analysis will be supported by direct quotes for each key theme and will highlight how the themes relate to the study aims and the rehabilitation context.

The study was approved by La Trobe University Human Research Ethics Committee (HEC24526). The study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal, and findings will be presented at conferences, workshops and online events.