Aim: Stakeholder engagement is central to comparative effectiveness research yet there are gaps in definitions of success. We used a framework developed by Lavallee et al. defining effective engagement criteria to evaluate stakeholder engagement during a pragmatic cluster-randomized trial. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were developed from the framework and completed to learn about members' experiences. Interviews were analyzed in a deductive approach for themes related to the effective engagement criteria. Results: Thirteen members participated and described: respect for ideas, time to achieve consensus, access to information and continuous feedback as areas of effective engagement. The primary criticism was lack of diversity. Discussion: Feedback was positive, particularly among themes of respect, trust and competence, and led to development of a list of best practices for engagement. The framework was successful for evaluating engagement. Conclusion: Standardized frameworks allow studies to formally evaluate their stakeholder engagement approach and develop best practices for future research.
Keywords: comparative effectiveness research; pragmatic trial; stakeholder engagement; stakeholder evaluation.
What is this article about? This article is about the evaluation of how effective the stakeholder engagement was in a comparative effectiveness research (CER) study funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The research team found a framework (developed by Lavalle et al.) that defined six different criteria for effective stakeholder engagement, and used that criteria to complete semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders involved with our study. These interviews were reviewed to determine what stakeholder engagement processes were successful and helped provide a list of best practices for stakeholder engagement for other researchers doing CER. What were the results? Stakeholders highlighted respect for their ideas, time to achieve consensus, easy access to information and a continuous feedback loop between study team and stakeholders as effective engagement processes. What do the results mean? These results can help other researchers doing CER learn best practices to implement from the outset of a study to best engage stakeholders in their research. The results also show that having a standardized framework to evaluate stakeholder engagement is important and allows for research teams to formally evaluate their engagement approach and learn what was successful and where there are areas for improvement in future studies.