Evidence reviews
A rapid evidence review outlines the available evidence on a discrete topic or question using methods that balance responsiveness while maintaining quality and transparency. Evidence includes grey and peer review literature.
Family functioning assessment tools
Added: 8 Oct 2026
What are the available family functioning assessment tools and what are their intended populations, domains measured, psychometric properties, strengths and limitations, and practical implementation considerations?
How do these tools compare to the North Carolina Family Assessment Scale (NCFAS) that is currently being used by Whole Family Teams in NSW?
Are there family assessment tools designed for, adapted to, or validated with Aboriginal families or culturally and linguistically diverse families and what is the evidence for their cultural validity or appropriateness?
How do these tools compare to the North Carolina Family Assessment Scale (NCFAS) that is currently being used by Whole Family Teams in NSW?
Are there family assessment tools designed for, adapted to, or validated with Aboriginal families or culturally and linguistically diverse families and what is the evidence for their cultural validity or appropriateness?
- Sixteen family functioning assessment tools were identified in the literature. The practitioner-completed NCFAS and Family Star Plus are designed for service assessment, while most other tools are self-report measures assessing family functioning, relationships, cohesion, resilience or family health. The NCFAS is unique in its child protection and whole-of-family focus. It is practitioner-completed, assesses strengths and risks across parenting, family safety, child wellbeing, environmental conditions and community functioning, and has strong evidence for reliability, validity, predictive value and sensitivity to change.
- Comprehensive instruments such as the McMaster Family Assessment Device, Family Assessment Measure III, Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation and Family Health Scale do assess multiple dimensions of family functioning and also demonstrate acceptable to excellent psychometric properties.
- Two tools, the Mayi Kuwayu Family Functioning Measure and Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey Family Functioning Scale, were specifically developed and validated for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples using Indigenous concepts of family, resilience and wellbeing. In contrast, most mainstream tools have only been translated into other languages, with little evidence of formal cultural adaptation or validation in Aboriginal or culturally and linguistically diverse populations.
Robot-assisted colorectal surgery
Added: 1 Oct 2026
How does robot-assisted colorectal surgery compare to conventional or manual surgery techniques with regards to clinical, patient-reported and health system outcomes?
- 11 systematic reviews and meta-analyses, one randomised controlled trial (RCT), and 13 observational cohort studies providing direct comparative analysis for robot-assisted and conventional colorectal surgery techniques were published since January 2025 are included in this evidence check.
- Most systematic reviews focused on oncological indications such as colon, rectal or colorectal cancer, with few focusing on high-risk patient cohorts such as obese or older patients. The majority of systematic reviews compared robot-assisted surgeries to laparoscopic surgeries.
- Primary studies within the systematic reviews were predominantly retrospective cohort studies. Four systematic reviews included RCT evidence only, mostly involving studies focused on rectal cancer.
Maternity care for women affected by female genital mutilation/cutting
Added: 22 Sep 2026
What are the national and international guidelines on maternity care for women with female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C)?
What is culturally appropriate, evidence-based antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care for women and their families affected by FGM/C? What are the components of care and what obstetric outcomes are associated with care?
What are the perspectives and experiences of maternity care of women who have experienced FGM/C?
What are the views of healthcare professionals delivering maternity care to women who have experienced FGM/C?
What is culturally appropriate, evidence-based antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care for women and their families affected by FGM/C? What are the components of care and what obstetric outcomes are associated with care?
What are the perspectives and experiences of maternity care of women who have experienced FGM/C?
What are the views of healthcare professionals delivering maternity care to women who have experienced FGM/C?
- Across international guidelines, there is consensus that maternity care for women with FGM/C should be woman-centred, culturally safe, trauma-informed, proactively planned during pregnancy, multidisciplinary in approach, clinically responsive to deinfibulation needs, and compliant with legal requirements prohibiting reinfibulation.
- Evidence-based care delivered within specialised services is associated with high acceptance of deinfibulation, as well as obstetric and neonatal outcomes comparable to those of women without FGM/C, although perineal trauma may still occur.
- Women affected by FGM/C often report negative maternity care experiences related to re-traumatisation, cultural insensitivity, stereotyping, and fear of safeguarding processes, whereas positive experiences are characterised by respectful, culturally safe, and trusting relationships with knowledgeable providers.
- Healthcare professionals frequently report limited confidence, knowledge, and organisational support, highlighting the need for specialised training, clear care pathways, and coordinated, woman-centred models of care.
Postpartum interventions in women who have had gestational diabetes
Added: 11 Sep 2026
In women who have had gestational diabetes mellitus, what is the effectiveness of lifestyle, dietary, pharmacological and surgical interventions to prevent type 2 diabetes in the period following birth?
In women who have had gestational diabetes mellitus, what is the effectiveness of lifestyle, dietary, pharmacological and surgical interventions to prevent gestational diabetes mellitus in subsequent pregnancies?
In women who have had gestational diabetes mellitus, what is the effectiveness of lifestyle, dietary, pharmacological and surgical interventions on health outcomes in their offspring?
In women who have had gestational diabetes mellitus, what is the effectiveness of lifestyle, dietary, pharmacological and surgical interventions to prevent gestational diabetes mellitus in subsequent pregnancies?
In women who have had gestational diabetes mellitus, what is the effectiveness of lifestyle, dietary, pharmacological and surgical interventions on health outcomes in their offspring?
- Guidelines consistently recommend postpartum glucose testing at 6 to 12 weeks, ongoing diabetes surveillance every 1 to 3 years, breastfeeding support, and lifestyle counselling for women with a history of gestational diabetes to reduce future diabetes risk.
- Multicomponent lifestyle interventions (diet, physical activity, behavioural support) were associated with reduced diabetes incidence, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and total cholesterol, and improved dietary behaviours. Breastfeeding and pharmacological interventions also reduced diabetes risk, while psychosocial interventions improved glycaemic outcomes, self-efficacy, and uptake of postpartum screening.
- Postpartum diabetes screening and lifestyle or pharmacological interventions were found to be cost-effective strategies for reducing long-term diabetes risk.
Post amputation care
Added: 30 Jul 2026
What guidelines are available on post-amputation care?
What is the evidence for rigid removable dressings compared to other dressings after amputation?
What are best-practice management strategies for post-operative and lifelong pain following amputation?
What is the evidence for rigid removable dressings compared to other dressings after amputation?
What are best-practice management strategies for post-operative and lifelong pain following amputation?
- Recent international guidelines consistently recommend coordinated multidisciplinary care, early rehabilitation, psychological support, residual limb management, and pain management across all phases of post-amputation care.
- Removable rigid dressings may improve early postoperative outcomes, including reduced swelling, faster residual limb maturation, fewer revision surgeries, and shorter hospital stays, although evidence for wound healing, pain and prosthetic fitting outcomes remains uncertain.
- Best-practice pain management involves multimodal approaches tailored to pain type, with the evidence supporting mirror therapy, graded motor imagery, virtual and augmented reality therapies, nerve-targeting surgical techniques, and selected regional anaesthesia and neuromodulation interventions.
Mobile crisis response and outreach models
Added: 25 Jun 2026
What is the effectiveness of mobile crisis response and outreach models in reducing suicidal distress, self-harm or acute service use?
What are the defining characteristics, workforce configurations and operational models underpinning their effectiveness?
What impact do these models have on equity, accessibility, e.g. for rural or priority populations, service efficiency and continuity of care?
What are the systemic, organisational and cultural enablers and barriers to their successful implementation and integration with existing health and social care systems?
What are the defining characteristics, workforce configurations and operational models underpinning their effectiveness?
What impact do these models have on equity, accessibility, e.g. for rural or priority populations, service efficiency and continuity of care?
What are the systemic, organisational and cultural enablers and barriers to their successful implementation and integration with existing health and social care systems?
- Mobile crisis response and outreach models are community-based interventions that respond rapidly to people experiencing acute mental distress or suicidal crisis.
- Mobile crisis response and outreach models described or evaluated in the literature vary substantially in referral pathways, operating hours, workforce composition and degree of integration with broader systems of care.
- Studies on mobile crisis outreach models report a wide range of outcomes due to a lack of a standardised core set of outcome measures. The existing literature is predominantly descriptive, focusing on outcomes such as call volumes, incidence frequencies or proportions, and generally lacks comparative analyses with alternate models or pre-implementation baselines.
Shared decision making in clinical practice guidelines
Added: 25 Jun 2026
What are the strategies for systematically embedding shared decision-making in clinical practice guidelines, models of care, and frameworks?
- This evidence check aimed to explore strategies to facilitate shared decision-making in clinical practice through clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and other similar clinician-facing guidance documents, and their associated outcomes. The peer-reviewed and grey literature reviewed was mostly descriptive, providing an overview of the development and integration of shared decision-making principles, concepts or tools into CPG. Few studies examined acceptability, usability and feasibility through real-world user testing.
- Several approaches to incorporating shared decision-making and patient decision aids in CPGs are described in the literature. These include: mentioning or recommending shared decision-making, highlighting options and patient involvement and choice, embedding or linking to an external or appropriate patient decision aid. Some patient decision aids are developed and updated alongside the CPG, often using the same evidence underlying the CPG recommendations.
Outpatient hysteroscopy
Added: 23 Jun 2026
In women undergoing hysteroscopy, how does an outpatient hysteroscopy compare to hysteroscopy under general anaesthesia in an operating theatre in terms of safety, efficacy, complication rates, patient experience and cost effectiveness?
For women undergoing hysteroscopy without general anaesthesia, what is the effectiveness of pain management strategies?
What does an outpatient hysteroscopy service look like in terms of clinical indications for selection of patients, infrastructure, equipment, and pre and post hysteroscopy requirements?
For women undergoing hysteroscopy without general anaesthesia, what is the effectiveness of pain management strategies?
What does an outpatient hysteroscopy service look like in terms of clinical indications for selection of patients, infrastructure, equipment, and pre and post hysteroscopy requirements?
- Throughout the literature, the term outpatient hysteroscopy is used interchangeably with office or ambulatory hysteroscopy. Outpatient hysteroscopy can include both diagnostic and operative procedures.
- Two economic modelling studies found that outpatient hysteroscopy is less costly than hysteroscopy performed in the operating room.
- There is a hierarchy of pain-control measures for hysteroscopy, ranging from no medications or use of oral non-sedating medications only, through to general anaesthesia.
Rapid evidence checks are based on a simplified review method and may not be entirely exhaustive, but aim to provide a balanced assessment of what is already known about a specific problem or issue. This brief has not been peer-reviewed and should not be a substitute for individual clinical judgement, nor is it an endorsed position of NSW Health. Evidence checks are archived a year after the date of publication.