| Methods |
Controlled before and after study conducted in Bellevue Hospital Center, New York, USA, to determine the effectiveness of screening for RSV and assignment to a cohort at admission to reduce nosocomial transmission of RSV infections. Children who were 3 years of age and older were admitted to a paediatric ward that is equipped with private rooms for the control of communicable diseases. Children younger than 3 years of age were admitted to a separate ward without private rooms, where as many as 4 children shared a room. All paediatric patients hospitalised on or before 31 December 1986 were regarded as potentially infected with RSV and were constituted as an RSV‐infected cohort. A second cohort, free of infection with RSV, was established on the toddlers' ward to segregate high‐risk patients from RSV‐infected patients. Patients requiring hospital admission and assignment to the high‐risk cohort were screened for evidence of RSV infection by means of a rapid ELISA method. No gloves or masks were used in the RSV cohort |
| Participants |
All hospitalised paediatric patients regarded as potentially infected with RSV |
| Interventions |
RSV screening cohorting and service education programme versus do nothing |
| Outcomes |
The authors concluded that screening and subsequent cohorting reduced RSV infections (from 5.33 infections per 1000/patient days of care to 1.23 infections per 1000/patient days after introduction of screening). There was an attempt at correlation between RSV admissions and RSV community circulation |
| Notes |
Risk of bias: medium
Notes: the authors concluded that screening and subsequent cohorting reduced RSV infections (from 5.33 infections per 1000/patient days of care to 1.23 infections per 1000/patient days after introduction of screening). There was an attempt at correlation between RSV admissions and RSV community circulation |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
N/A |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
N/A |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
Unclear risk |
N/A |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias)
All outcomes |
Unclear risk |
N/A |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Unclear risk |
N/A |
