Testing programs for COVID-19 depend on the voluntary actions of members of the public for their success. Understanding people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior related to COVID-19 testing is, therefore, key to the design of effective testing programs worldwide. This paper reports on the findings of a rapid scoping review to map the extent, characteristics, and scope of social science research on COVID-19 testing and identifies key themes from the literature. Main findings include the discoveries that people are largely accepting of testing technologies and guidelines and that a sense of social solidarity is a key motivator of testing uptake. The main barriers to accessing and undertaking testing include uncertainty about eligibility and how to access tests, difficulty interpreting symptoms, logistical issues including transport to and from test sites and the discomfort of sample extraction, and concerns about the consequences of a positive result. The review found that existing research was limited in depth and scope. More research employing longitudinal and qualitative methods based in under-resourced settings and examining intersections between testing and experiences of social, political, and economic vulnerability is needed. Last, the findings of this review suggest that testing should be understood as a social process that is inseparable from processes of contact tracing and isolation and is embedded in people’s everyday routines, livelihoods and relationships.

Background: Mobile health interventions (MHI) offer the potential to help improve nasal corticosteroid (NCS) adherence in allergic rhinitis (AR). The aim of this systematic review was to summarise the current evidence on the effectiveness of MHI for improving NCS adherence in AR. Methods: We systematically searched MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Central register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) for randomised controlled trials filtered for publication dates between 2010 and 2021. We evaluated the effects of MHI aiming to improve NCS adherence on self-management outcomes in AR and comorbid conditions. Two reviewers independently screened potential studies, extracted study characteristics and outcomes from eligible papers and assessed risk of bias using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool 2.0. High heterogeneity precluded metaanalysis. Data were descriptively and narratively synthesised.Results: Our searches identified 776 individual studies of which 4 met the inclusion criteria. These studies were heterogeneous with respect to participant, intervention and outcome characteristics. We considered all outcome-specific overall risk of bias assessments to be of high risk of bias except for two studies examining NCS adherence which received 'some concern' grades. The three studies which reported on NCS adherence found that MHI were associated with improvement in NCS adherence. Significant MHI-associated improvement in symptoms or diseasespecific quality of life was found in one study each, whilst no study reported significant differences in nasal patency.Conclusions: Whilst MHI showed potential to improve NCS adherence, their effect on clinical outcomes varied. Furthermore, robust studies with longer intervention durations are needed to adequately assess effects of MHI and their individual features on NCS adherence and clinical outcomes.

ObjectivesTo explore the acceptability of regular asymptomatic testing for SARS-CoV-2 on a university campus using saliva sampling for PCR analysis and the barriers and facilitators to participation.DesignCross-sectional surveys and qualitative semistructured interviews.SettingEdinburgh, Scotland.ParticipantsUniversity staff and students who had registered for the testing programme (TestEd) and provided at least one sample.Results522 participants completed a pilot survey in April 2021 and 1750 completed the main survey (November 2021). 48 staff and students who consented to be contacted for interview took part in the qualitative research. Participants were positive about their experience with TestEd with 94% describing it as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. Facilitators to participation included multiple testing sites on campus, ease of providing saliva samples compared with nasopharyngeal swabs, perceived accuracy compared with lateral flow devices (LFDs) and reassurance of test availability while working or studying on campus. Barriers included concerns about privacy while testing, time to and methods of receiving results compared with LFDs and concerns about insufficient uptake in the university community. There was little evidence that the availability of testing on campus changed the behaviour of participants during a period when COVID-19 restrictions were in place.ConclusionsThe provision of free asymptomatic testing for COVID-19 on a university campus was welcomed by participants and the use of saliva-based PCR testing was regarded as more comfortable and accurate than LFDs. Convenience is a key facilitator of participation in regular asymptomatic testing programmes. Availability of testing did not appear to undermine engagement with public health guidelines.

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This article assesses the availability of essential diagnostic tests in primary health care facilities in two districts in Sierra Leone. In addition to evaluating whether a test is physically present at a facility, it extends the concept of availability to include whether equipment is functional and whether infrastructure, systems, personnel and resources are in place to allow a particular test to be “ready to hand”, that is, available for immediate use when needed. Between February 2019 and September 2019, a cross-sectional mixed-methods survey was conducted in all 40 Community Health Centres (CHCs) in Western Area, one of five principal divisions in Sierra Leone. The number of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) available ranged from 1–12, with 75% of facilities having 9 or less RDTs available out of a possible 17. While RDTs were overall more widely present than manual assays, there was wide variation between tests. The presence of RDTs at individual facilities was associated with having a permanent laboratory technician on staff. Despite CHCs being formally designated as providing laboratory services, no CHC fulfilled standard World Health Organisation (WHO) criteria for a laboratory. Only 9/40 (22.5%) CHCs had a designated laboratory space and a permanently employed laboratory technician. There was low availability of essential equipment and infrastructure. Supply chains were fragmented and unreliable, including a high dependency (>50%) on informal private sources for the majority of the available RDTs, consumables, and reagents. We conclude that the readiness of diagnostic services, including RDTs, depends on the presence and functionality of essential infrastructure, human resources, equipment and systems and that RDTs are not on their own a solution to infrastructural failings. Efforts to strengthen laboratory systems at the primary care level should take a holistic approach and focus on whether tests are “ready-to-hand” in addition to whether they are physically present.

IntroductionMobile health (mHealth) is a potential tool to improve nasal corticosteroid (NCS) adherence in allergic rhinitis (AR), which remains largely poor and inconsistent for many. We plan to undertake a systematic review to synthesise the evidence on the efficacy of mHealth interventions to improve NCS adherence in AR. Methods and analysisA systematic search will be conducted in the electronic databases MEDLINE, EMBASE and CENTRAL (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials), filtered for publication dates between January 2010 and August 2020. The search is scheduled to commence in August 2020. We will scan reference lists of included studies for additional eligible papers. Relevant unpublished or in-progress trials will be searched for through trial registries. Randomised controlled trials that examine the efficacy of mHealth interventions to improve NCS adherence in AR are to be included. Two reviewers will independently screen and extract relevant data from the included studies and perform a risk-of-bias assessment using the Cochrane risk of bias tool 2.0. We will perform a narrative synthesis with relevant data tables and, if deemed clinically relevant and statistically adequate, meta-analyses using random-effects modelling. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement will be used to help guide the reporting of this review. Ethics and disseminationSince this systematic review will be exclusively based on published and retrievable literature, no ethics approval will be sought. The findings of this systematic review will be disseminated at appropriate conferences/webinars while being published in an open access peer-reviewed journal.Registration: In accordance with the guidelines, our systematic review protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on 27th August 2020. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020198879.