Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
A key challenge many researchers face with public involvement in systematic reviews is finding people to take part. This can be especially true when the population of interest would not typically be available to attend board-room style meetings at a research centre.
Objectives:
We demonstrate how researchers were able to meaningfully involve women with children in two separate systematic reviews: APPEAL (Antenatal Preventative Pelvic floor Exercises And Localisation - delivery of pelvic floor muscle exercise education for women during pregnancy) and PaReNt (parent-to-parent support interventions for parents of babies cared for in a neonatal unit).
Methods:
In addition to using standard practices of good-quality public involvement (e.g. respecting each other's perspective, valuing people's time by offering payments etc.), we used a number of complementary approaches to ensure that women with children could become, and remain, involved in the reviews:
- Working with a community leader to establish needs and build trust.
- Using a community venue known and regularly visited by women.
- Actively welcoming children (e.g. using child-friendly settings).
- Using people's preferred communication methods (e.g. text message and Facebook).
- Investing time in planning short, focussed meetings.
Results:
In both projects planned-for group size (N = 5) was exceeded due to high interest from women. Children aged from just two weeks to three years were present at every meeting. Notable impacts from involvement include capturing additional terms for search strategies, identifying outcomes of interest, emphasising important themes and noting missing themes during qualitative analysis. Impacts were also evident beyond the research; one woman described the personal impact of involvement in the group and how it brought them closer together as friends.
Conclusions:
Impactful involvement can be achieved in systematic reviews by prioritising the needs of the target population. Researchers need to build time early on and throughout the review process to enable these needs to be recognised, established and acted upon.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
We describe public involvement in two systematic reviews. The APPEAL group chose the language used to describe those involved. A member of the PaReNt group is included as a co-author.
A key challenge many researchers face with public involvement in systematic reviews is finding people to take part. This can be especially true when the population of interest would not typically be available to attend board-room style meetings at a research centre.
Objectives:
We demonstrate how researchers were able to meaningfully involve women with children in two separate systematic reviews: APPEAL (Antenatal Preventative Pelvic floor Exercises And Localisation - delivery of pelvic floor muscle exercise education for women during pregnancy) and PaReNt (parent-to-parent support interventions for parents of babies cared for in a neonatal unit).
Methods:
In addition to using standard practices of good-quality public involvement (e.g. respecting each other's perspective, valuing people's time by offering payments etc.), we used a number of complementary approaches to ensure that women with children could become, and remain, involved in the reviews:
- Working with a community leader to establish needs and build trust.
- Using a community venue known and regularly visited by women.
- Actively welcoming children (e.g. using child-friendly settings).
- Using people's preferred communication methods (e.g. text message and Facebook).
- Investing time in planning short, focussed meetings.
Results:
In both projects planned-for group size (N = 5) was exceeded due to high interest from women. Children aged from just two weeks to three years were present at every meeting. Notable impacts from involvement include capturing additional terms for search strategies, identifying outcomes of interest, emphasising important themes and noting missing themes during qualitative analysis. Impacts were also evident beyond the research; one woman described the personal impact of involvement in the group and how it brought them closer together as friends.
Conclusions:
Impactful involvement can be achieved in systematic reviews by prioritising the needs of the target population. Researchers need to build time early on and throughout the review process to enable these needs to be recognised, established and acted upon.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
We describe public involvement in two systematic reviews. The APPEAL group chose the language used to describe those involved. A member of the PaReNt group is included as a co-author.