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Design Details
Print Data
Extraction form for project: The effect of volunteering on the health and wellbeing of volunteers: an umbrella review
Design Details
1. Review ID
(surname of first author and year first full report of study was published e.g. Smith 2001)
Filges 2020
2. Review title
Voluntary work for the physical and mental health of older volunteers: A systematic review
3. Date form completed
04/08/2022
4. Initials of person extracting
BN
5. Review funding source
VIVE-CAMPBELL
6. Possible conflicts of interest
None.
7. Aim of review
The main objective of this review is to answer the following research question: what are the effects of volunteering on the physical and mental health of people aged 65 years or older?
8. Number of databases searched
8
9. Names of databases searched; date ranges of databases searched
• SocIndex (EBSCO) • PsycInfo (EBSCO) • EconLit (EBSCO) • Academic Search (EBSCO) • Science Citation Index (Web of Science) • Social Science Citation Index (Web of Science) • MEDLINE (PubMed) • Social Care Online
10. Date of last search
The database searches were carried out to December 2018 and other resources were searched in September 2019 and October 2019
11. Number of included studies
90 (only 26 could be used in data synthesis)
12. Exclusion criteria for participants
(e.g age, comorbidities)
older people aged 65 or over
13. Exclusion criteria for volunteering
(e.g type of volunteering, for a specific organistion/purpose)
formal volunteering which can be described as voluntary, on‐going, planned, helping behaviour that intend to increase the well‐being of strangers, offers no monetary compensation and typically occurs within an organisational context. The comparison population were people who are not engaged in formal voluntary work.
14. Exclusion criteria for study type
All study designs that used a well‐defined control group were eligible for inclusion. Studies that utilised qualitative approaches were not included. Nonrandomised studies, where voluntary work has occurred in the course of usual decisions outside the researcher's control, must have demonstrated pretreatment group equivalence via matching, statistical controls or evidence of equivalence on key risk variables and participant characteristics. = RCTs and non-randomised studies
15. Exclusion criteria for outcome measures
measures of physical and mental health
16. Outcomes studied
(select all that apply)
Psychological
Physical
Social
General
17. Primary reported outcomes
Objective measures of physical health, or self-reported measures of mental health.
18. Secondary reported outcomes (if applicable)
Self-reported physical health measures
19. Number of participants included in the review
tudies) was 2,369, ranging from 15 to 27,131 and the average number of controls was 13,581, ranging from 13 to 217.297. 61% were female on average (reported in nine studies) and 57% of volunteers and controls combined (reported in 13 studies).
20. Review’s included study type (% of quant studies)
6 RCTs, remaining 84 were non-randomised.
21. Included studies countries of publication
Mostly from the US, followed by Japan. International scope.
22. Range of included studies years of publication
Baseline time period spanned from 1984 to 2014 and on average the baseline year was 2001.
23. Review’s population
(age, ethnicity, SES)
Not all studies reported an average age of the participants but among those reporting an average age of volunteers the average was 76 years and among those studies only reporting an average age of all participants (volunteers and controls combined) the average was 70 years.
24. Social outcomes reported
25. Social outcomes not supported
(e.g cited as non-significant)
26. Physical outcomes reported
Mortality: All reported results indicated an effect favouring the volunteers. Incident functional disability HR: All reported results indicated an effect favouring the volunteers. Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL): Both reported results indicated an effect favouring the volunteers. Maintenance of functional competence: All reported results indicated an effect favouring the volunteers.
27. Physical outcomes not supported
(e.g cited as non-significant)
28. Psychological outcomes reported
Severity measure for depression: The effect sizes are measured such that a positive effect size favours the volunteers, that is, when an effect size is positive the voluntary workers are better off than control groups of nonvolunteers. Effect size was small but significant.
29. Psychological outcomes not supported
(e.g cited as non-significant)
30. General outcomes reported
(i.e general health and wellbeing)
31. General outcomes not supported
(e.g cited as non-significant)
32. Interactions reported
(i.e between each other or demographic variables)
33. Was a meta-analysis performed?
-- Select response --
Yes
No
34. Number of included studies in the meta-analysis
Mortality: 10 (8 HR and 2 OR) Incident functional disability: 3 IADL: 2 Maintenance of functional competence: 3 Severity measure for depression: 3
35. Heterogeneity
(e.g I squared)
Mortality HR: 0% Mortality OR: 0% Incident functional disability HR: 27% IADL: 0% Maintenance of functional competence: 0% Severity measure for depression: 12%
36. Pooled estimates
Mortality HR: .76 Mortality OR: .69 Incident functional disability HR: .83 IADL: .73 Maintenance of functional competence: .81 Severity measure for depression: .12
37. Confidence intervals (95%)
Mortality HR: 0.72–0.80 Mortality OR: 0.58–0.83 Incident functional disability HR: 0.72–0.97 IADL: 0.53–1.01 Maintenance of functional competence: 0.70–0.94 Severity measure for depression: 0.00–0.23
38. Key conclusions from study authors
The available evidence does suggest that there is an effect on the mortality of volunteers, although the effect is small. We found a statistically significant negative effect of volunteering on mortality. For other physical outcomes, mental health outcomes, and secondary outcomes, the evidence was inconclusive because too few studies contributed data.
39. Review limitations
In this review, we included total of 24 studies in the data synthesis. This number is relatively low compared to the large number of studies (90) meeting the inclusion criteria (due to high ROB and lack of reporting of effect sizes). High ROB for included studies. 17 studies provided insufficient information to determine whether the study participants met the age eligibility criteria of the review. Despite attempts to contact the author(s) of all studies with insufficient information (we could not locate a valid e‐mail address for the authors of five of the studies) we are still awaiting answers with regard to 10 studies. We were unable to comment on the possibility of publication bias as at most eight studies was included in the same meta‐analysis.
40. AMSTAR 2 quality appraisal rating
30
41. Quality appraisal tool used by review (if applicable)
We assessed the risk of bias using a model developed by Prof. Barnaby Reeves in association with the Cochrane Non‐Randomised Studies Methods Group (ROBINS-I)
42. Quality of included studies (if applicable)
Forty six studies were judged to have a score of 5 on the risk of bias scale for either the confounding item, for the incomplete data item, for the other bias item or for the selective reporting item. Several of the studies were judged to have a score of 5 on one or more of the risk of bias items. In accordance with the protocol, we excluded studies scoring 5 on any of the risk of bias items from the data synthesis on the basis that they would be more likely to mislead than inform. The total number of studies with a risk of bias so high that the findings should not be considered in the data synthesis was 46. Overall the risk of bias in the majority of included studies was high.
43. Publication bias reported (if applicable)
We used funnel plots for information about possible publication bias. We found no strong indication of publication bias.
44. Was correspondence required for further study information?
-- Select response --
Yes
No
45. What further correspondence was required, and from whom?
46. What further study information was requested (from whom, what and when)?
47. What correspondence was received (from whom, what and when)?
Print Data
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