The ' what' and ' how ' of screening for social needs in healthcare settings: a scoping review.

We identified 420 unique citations, and 27 were included. Nine additional studies were retrieved by searching for tools that were used or referred to in excluded studies. Questions relating to food insecurity and the physical environment in which a person lives were the most frequently included items (92-94% of tools), followed by questions relating to economic stability and aspects of social and community context (81%). Seventy-five percent of the screening tools included items that evaluated five or more social needs categories (mean 6.5; standard deviation 1.75). One study reported that the tool had been 'validated'; 16 reported 'partial' validation; 12 reported that the tool was 'not validated' and seven studies did not report validation processes or outcomes.