Evidence & Policy最新文献

Background: Research quality is often discussed in terms of excellence, emphasising replicability and trustworthiness. Practice-based research instead emphasises implementability and practical impact, and thus, may reflect other values and logics and challenge how high-quality practice-based research is defined. The aim of this study is to explore what characterises excellent practice-based research.

Method: R&D staff at social and health care organisations in Sweden were invited to participate in a concept mapping study. Forty-eight participants were prompted to finish the sentence: 'Excellent practice-based research is characterised by …' in a brainstorming session. Next, participants (n=22) worked individually to sort statements by similarity and rate perceived importance (n=13) and experience (n=10). Data was analysed with multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis and t-tests. Lastly, a digital workshop with 50 participants was conducted to facilitate the interpretation of cluster solutions.

Results: Eighty-three statements were distilled into 11 clusters from characteristics typical for traditional academic values (for example, 'deploying appropriate methods') and practice-based research (for example, 'being actionable') to characteristics emphasising the unique blend between them, such as 'capturing and conveying reality' and 'embracing different agendas and perspectives', the latter rated as the most important quality of excellent practice-based research, followed by 'deploying appropriate methods' and 'being actionable'.

Conclusions: Practice-based research is a complex field, addressing both 'why things are' and 'how they work'. This study offers insights into how excellent practice-based research can be defined, broadening the view of what excellence entails.

Background: Patients with cardiovascular diseases often experience fear of death, depression and anxiety, all of which are linked to a heightened risk of future cardiac events. Research indicates that improved empathy is associated with a reduced risk of such events, making the enhancement of empathy among cardiac nurses crucial. Knowledge brokering, a strategy that utilises various interventions to strengthen practice, is key to achieving this.

Purpose: This study aims to examine the impact of knowledge brokering on nurses' empathy towards patients receiving cardiac care.

Methods: This experimental study involved 100 cardiac nurses who were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups. The intervention group received knowledge brokering using Dobbin's seven-stage method. Empathy levels were measured using the Empathy Construct Rating Scale (ECRS), with scores ranging from +252 to -252, and analysed using SPSS version 21.

Results: Findings showed a significant mean empathy change score (MECS) of 22.90 ± 50.93 in the intervention group (p=0.003) compared to 7.10 ± 60.20 in the control group (p=0.408). Notably, nurses with a baseline empathy score of ≥100 in the intervention group exhibited a significantly higher adjusted MECS than the control group (11.44 units versus -15.42 units).

Conclusion: Knowledge brokering can enhance empathy in moderately empathic cardiac nurses, with its effectiveness influenced by the nurses' initial empathy levels. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the knowledge brokering strategy in healthcare settings.

This practice piece will present a comparative reflection of how the use of evidence in policy looks when viewed from the outside, as a researcher, with how evidence use is experienced when working as a policy maker. The three authors are unusual in sharing an experience of studying evidence use in policy before becoming elected politicians who are involved in policy making and who have therefore gained a very different, more direct experience of how evidence is used in policy-making settings. Synhaeve has studied evidence use in secure youth care and is an elected councillor and was elected national member of parliament for the Democrats 66 Party in the Netherlands, McMahon has studied evidence use in public health and is an elected councillor for the Labour Party in England, while Heap has studied evidence use in social security policy and is an elected councillor for the Green Party in Scotland. The practice piece will consider to what extent their perspectives on evidence use in policy have shifted as they have moved from researcher to political representative and policy maker, and will consider to what extent these experiences have been shaped by their substantive policy interests and the political systems in which each is operating. It will conclude by summarising the collective insights that have emerged for the three authors as they have shifted to viewing evidence use from the perspective of an insider, who is using evidence in making policy, rather than an outsider, producing evidence with a view to influencing policy.

Background: Our interdisciplinary team initiated a project to inform the COVID-19 vaccination programme. We developed a novel research co-creation approach to share emerging findings with government.

Aims and objectives: We critically assess the 'Functional Dialogue' (FD) programme for future research translation practices in time-limited policy-making scenarios. We identify what factors helped us to put the FDs together and consider their effects on all aspects of the research programme. We draw out key moments of impact, weaknesses and challenges and identify how future FDs might be enhanced.

Methods: Between January 2021 and June 2022, we conducted 14 FDs with state and federal government, exploring attendees' attitudes, beliefs, experiences, roles and observations regarding our research. FDs and research team debriefs were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically.

Findings: FD processes proved invaluable to the timeliness, impact and flow of our research project by creating systems that helped to bridge the evidence-policy gap. Relationships and reciprocity helped, but other professional commitments of our government partners posed challenges and produced fluctuating engagement. FDs built the capacity of the research team, strengthening communication skills and creating opportunities to contribute to pandemic policies.

Discussion and conclusion: We struggled to quantify the impact of FDs on policy decisions due to the ethical requirements of academic research, barriers for policy makers in isolating and/or acknowledging impact, and the collaborative nature of dialogue. Nevertheless, the structures of knowledge transfer that we foresaw as necessary to ensure impact became the central plank of the project's broader success.

Background: The 2018 Declaration of Astana acknowledges the need to include traditional, complementary and integrative health care (TCIH) knowledge and technologies within primary health care. The World Health Assembly has also called member states to integrate TCIH into national healthcare systems. However, little attention has been given to developing supportive resources for this process in practice, policy, research and education.

Methods: This study employed Delphi methodology to refine a framework for the evaluation and implementation of text-based traditional knowledge in contemporary health contexts. An international sample was recruited of expert participants with experience in a diversity of settings and disciplines. Framework items were retained, removed or modified based on participant consensus agreement on the importance of each item (consensus set at ≥75 per cent agreement), and mapped for comprehensiveness against an implementation framework.

Findings: The initial survey round was completed by 19 participants and the second round by 15 participants. Most participants (n=15) held TCIH qualifications, representing six TCIH professions in total (naturopathy, Western herbal medicine, osteopathy, traditional Chinese and Oriental medicine, Ayurveda, and homeopathy). Participants typically had experience in multiple contexts across clinical practice, research, education and policy development. Consensus was achieved after two rounds and the resulting framework included three sections comprising guiding principles (five items), critical appraisal criteria (three items) and application criteria (eight items).

Conclusions: As the international health community increasingly recognised the potential value and importance of TCIH knowledge and technologies, this Contemporary Implementation of Traditional knowledge and Evidence (CITE) Framework provides a timely and much-needed practical guide to rigorous and respectful traditional knowledge implementation.

Background: The article analyses the policy engagement component of a research project on climate resilience in vulnerable communities that took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Conducted in 2022, the engagement included community and stakeholder events in three research sites, and a cross-cutting policy event with municipal officials, held at the end of the project. Importantly, this policy engagement process occurred in a context of political marginalisation, that is, one characterised by low trust, and little meaningful representation or even communication between these vulnerable communities and the city.

Aims and objectives: This article examines the impact of policy engagement on political relations between local government and vulnerable communities.

Methods: The overall methodology of the article is qualitative, using an illustrative case-study research design to unpack the subjective experiences of both government officials and residents of vulnerable communities. Primary data included many primary documents, direct observation of the engagements and post-event interviews.

Findings: First, the engagement process created new 'invented' spaces for the representation of community perspectives to the city, and the city's perspective to the community. Second, the engagement facilitated community self-representation through educating community members to advocate for their ideas in these new invented spaces. Third, this engagement tended to be more constructive and deliberative than polarising and confrontational.

Discussion and conclusions: Drawing on the theoretical framework of 'political mediation', the policy engagement process is characterised as a positive instance of democratic mediation through 'empowered representation', with some specified limitations.

Background: COVID-19 accentuated an evergreen dilemma in evidence-informed policy making: the imperative to synthesise the best available evidence with limited time to produce high quality synthesis. The pandemic prompted the adaptation of evidence synthesis practices to match the urgency of the crisis, and heightened demand by policy makers, while maintaining a focus on quality. This study documents the response to these challenges from the perspectives of those who produced evidence syntheses in Canada.

Methods: A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted between October 2022 and January 2023. Data collection included interviews with 22 participants within 19 organisations across seven provinces. A thematic analysis was performed and reported narratively.

Results: Evidence synthesis producers in Canada adapted in response to the demands of different types of requests during the pandemic. Participants described several key challenges in responding to end-users, in which a lack of knowledge of evidence synthesis processes and products prompted difficult questions and unrealistic expectations. They responded to the needs of evidence synthesis requestors by creating custom syntheses, utilising rapid review methodologies, emphasising limitations and incorporating recommendations into syntheses.

Discussion and conclusion: The evidence synthesis field was able to adapt to pandemic challenges in valuable ways. Still, this experience accentuates disconnects between producers and users, including differing views on the purpose, methods, limitations and implementation of synthesis findings.

Background: In theory and practice, it is understood that personal relationships play a role in the effectiveness of translational models that bridge research and policy. These models can be made more efficient by understanding factors impacting relationships between policy-making players and third-party knowledge brokers.

Aims and objectives: This study investigates a range of personal and office-level characteristics in predicting initial meetings and sustained relationships between federal staffers and knowledge brokers.

Methods: A public affairs database, Quorum, was used to pull data on staffers who were contacted between September 2021 and August 2022 during an optimisation phase of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration (RPC). Logistic regression models were used to understand the impact of the characteristics on outcomes such as attending initial meetings and attending meetings facilitated by the RPC.

Findings: Mid-level staffers and democratic staffers were more likely to meet with RPC staff. Office tenure was predictive of lower odds of meeting with RPC staff. For significant associations, the sample was stratified by political party to determine if the results differed by party.

Discussion and conclusions: Together, these results suggest there are both personal and office-level characteristics affecting the federal staffers' engagement with knowledge brokers. This work further informs efforts to bridge the gap between science and policy by informing knowledge brokers which offices and staffers they may want to approach.

Background: The COVID-19 policy context was characterised by high levels of uncertainty, imperfect knowledge and the need for immediate action. Therefore, governments in Europe tended to rely on expertise provided by advisory bodies to design their crisis response. Advisory bodies played a fundamental part in policy making during the crisis to optimise policy formulation.

Aims and objectives: During the COVID-19 crisis, the literature on policy advice grew considerably. To grasp the main research outcomes, we conduct a scoping review that interrogates the COVID-19 policy advice literature to answer the question 'How did policy advisory bodies operate in Europe during the COVID-19 crisis?' Our review builds on a strong theoretical and conceptual basis informed by the literature on policy advisory systems, while offering a new perspective by focusing on advice and policy making during crisis times specifically. We present a review of newly established knowledge and identify what merits further study.

Methods: The scoping review follows a strict protocol informed by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to capture the literature published between 2020 and 2023. We searched two databases, Scopus and Web of Science. The grey literature was excluded.

Findings: In total, 59 academic outputs inform this review. Overrepresented in our review were qualitative studies, studies about the UK and Sweden, and studies that examined the first half of 2020. Our review shows that the academic community has focused on advisory body composition, body structure and the advisory process.

Discussion: Avenues for further research include the independence and influence of advisory bodies, and the fate of bodies set up during the crisis.