Rikkers Wavne, Boterhoven de Haan Katrina, Lawrence David, McKenzie Anne, Hancock Kirsten, Haines Hayley, Christensen Daniel, Zubrick Stephen R
Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
School of Population Health, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth, Australia.
PLoS One. 2015 May 4;10(5):e0125969. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125969. eCollection 2015.
The aims of this study were to assess participatory methods for obtaining community views on child health research.
Community participation in research is recognised as an important part of the research process; however, there has been inconsistency in its implementation and application in Australia. The Western Australian Telethon Kids Institute Participation Program employs a range of methods for fostering active involvement of community members in its research. These include public discussion forums, called Community Conversations. While participation levels are good, the attendees represent only a sub-section of the Western Australian population. Therefore, we conducted a telephone survey of randomly selected households to evaluate its effectiveness in eliciting views from a broader cross-section of the community about our research agenda and community participation in research, and whether the participants would be representative of the general population. We also conducted two Conversations, comparing the survey as a recruitment tool and normal methods using the Participation Program.
While the telephone survey was a good method for eliciting community views about research, there were marked differences in the profile of study participants compared to the general population (e.g. 78% vs 50% females). With a 26% response rate, the telephone survey was also more expensive than a Community Conversation. The cold calling approach proved an unsuccessful recruitment method, with only two out of a possible 816 telephone respondents attending a Conversation.
While the results showed that both of the methods produced useful input for our research program, we could not conclude that either method gained input that was representative of the entire community. The Conversations were relatively low-cost and provided more in-depth information about one subject, whereas the telephone survey provided information across a greater range of subjects, and allowed more quantitative analysis.
本研究旨在评估获取社区对儿童健康研究看法的参与式方法。
社区参与研究被视为研究过程的重要组成部分；然而，在澳大利亚其实施和应用一直存在不一致的情况。西澳大利亚州Telethon儿童研究所参与计划采用一系列方法促进社区成员积极参与其研究。这些方法包括名为“社区对话”的公开讨论论坛。虽然参与度良好，但参与者仅代表西澳大利亚州人口的一个子群体。因此，我们对随机抽取的家庭进行了电话调查，以评估其在从更广泛的社区群体中获取对我们研究议程及社区参与研究的看法方面的有效性，以及参与者是否能代表一般人群。我们还进行了两次“对话”，比较了作为招募工具的调查和使用参与计划的常规方法。
虽然电话调查是获取社区对研究看法的好方法，但与一般人群相比，研究参与者的特征存在显著差异（例如，女性比例分别为78%和50%）。电话调查的回复率为26%，且成本也高于“社区对话”。事实证明，冷不防打电话的招募方法并不成功，在可能的816名电话受访者中只有两人参加了一次“对话”。
虽然结果表明这两种方法都为我们的研究项目提供了有用的信息，但我们无法得出任何一种方法获得的信息能代表整个社区的结论。“对话”成本相对较低，能提供关于一个主题的更深入信息，而电话调查能提供更广泛主题的信息，并允许进行更多定量分析。
