ObjectiveSocial prescribing is a person-centred model of care with emphases on lessening the impact of unmet social needs, supporting the delivery of personalised care, and reducing non-medical resource use in the primary care setting. The purpose of this systematic review was to synthesise the effect of social prescribing for older adults within primary care.DesignWe followed standard systematic review guidelines, including protocol registration, screening studies (title/abstract and full text) and assessing the study quality.Eligibility and information sourcesWe searched multiple online databases for studies that included older adults 60+ years (group mean age), an intervention defined and called social prescribing (or social prescription) via health provider referrals to non-medical services, and quantitative physical and psychosocial outcomes and/or health resource use. We included experimental and observational studies from all years and languages and conducted a narrative synthesis. The date of the last search was 24 March 2022.ResultsWe screened 406 citations (after removing duplicates) and included seven studies. All studies except one were before–after design without a control group, and all except one study was conducted in the UK. Studies included 12–159 participants (baseline), there were more women than men, the group mean (SD) age was 76.1 (4.0) years and data collection (baseline to final) occurred on average 19.4 (14.0) weeks apart. Social prescribing referrals came from health and social providers. Studies had considerable risk of bias, programme implementation details were missing, and for studies that reported data (n=6) on average only 66% of participants completed studies (per-protocol). There were some positive effects of social prescribing on physical and psychosocial outcomes (eg, social participation, well-being). Findings varied for health resource use. These results may change with new evidence.ConclusionsThere were few peer-reviewed studies available for social prescribing and older adults. Next steps for social prescribing should include co-creating initiatives with providers, older people and communities to identify meaningful outcomes, and feasible and robust methods for uptake of the prescription and community programmes. This should be considered in advance or in parallel with determining its effectiveness for meaningful outcomes at multiple levels (person, provider and programme).

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Purpose This is a study protocol to co-create with knowledge users a core outcome set focused on middle-aged and older adults (40 years+) for use in social prescribing research. Methods We will follow the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) guide and use modified Delphi methods, including collating outcomes reported in social prescribing publications, online surveys, and discussion with our team to finalize the core outcome set. We intentionally center this work on people who deliver and receive social prescribing and include methods to evaluate collaboration. Our three-part process includes: (1) identifying published systematic reviews on social prescribing for adults to extract reported outcomes; and (2) up to three rounds of online surveys to rate the importance of outcomes for social prescribing. For this part, we will invite people (n = 240) who represent the population experienced in social prescribing, including researchers, members of social prescribing organizations, and people who receive social prescribing and their caregivers. Finally, we will (3) convene a virtual team meeting to discuss and rank the findings and finalize the core outcome set and our knowledge mobilization plan. Conclusion To our knowledge, this is the first study designed to use a modified Delphi method to co-create core outcomes for social prescribing. Development of a core outcome set contributes to improved knowledge synthesis via consistency in measures and terminology. We aim to develop guidance for future research, and specifically on the use of core outcomes for social prescribing at the person/patient, provider, program, and societal-level.