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Abstract
Background: Participation of Spanish-speaking consumers is really low. After organizing training activities on evidence-based health care for consumers in different countries, there is an interest for consumers to be involved, but there is a lack of follow-up and capacity building. One of the problems is that they need to use a foreign language to contribute to peer reviewing, and this increases the difficulties of being involved. This fact reduces the pool of potential contributors to the Collaboration. Objectives: To build a Spanish-speaking branch of Cochrane Consumer Network (CCNet) with the involvement of consumers and Cochrane review authors. Methods: Working with the different contributors within the Iberoamerican area, we will enrol consumers in the region interested in contributing to the research process. We will setup a system that can allow their input to the peer review process: firstly, taking advantage of bilingual consumers, to involve them in the usual peer review process for consumers; secondly, using the mentoring programs for authors active in the region, trying to incorporate the consumer input from the inception of the research project, as they can communicate with authors in Spanish. Results: We aim to locate at least a patient per country on the Iberoamerican region where there is Cochrane activity, and involve them in one of the frameworks described above. As well as increasing the accessibility to Cochrane and maximizing our audience, this project also aims to increase the awareness of the Cochrane Collaboration outside the academic world, involving patients and their organizations in a wider range of countries. Conclusions: Creating networks of consumers, with a framework for contribution, could improve the recruitment of consumers in non-English speaking countries.