Priority setting in paediatric preventive care research.

OBJECTIVES

To identify the unanswered research questions in paediatric preventive care that are most important to parents and clinicians, and to explore how questions from parents and clinicians may differ.

DESIGN

Iterative mixed methods research priority setting process.

SETTING

Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

PARTICIPANTS

Parents of children aged 0-5 years enrolled in a research network in Toronto, and clinicians practising in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

INTERVENTIONS

Informed by the James Lind Alliance's methodology, an online questionnaire collected unanswered research questions in paediatric preventive care from study participants. Similar submissions were combined and ranked. A consensus workshop attended by 28 parents and clinicians considered the most highly ranked submissions and used the nominal group technique to select the 10 most important unanswered research questions.

RESULTS

Forty-two clinicians and 115 parents submitted 255 and 791 research questions, respectively, which were combined into 79 indicative questions. Most submissions were about nutrition, illness prevention, parenting and behaviour management. Parents were more likely to ask questions about screen time (49 parents vs 8 clinicians, p<0.05) and environmental toxins (18 parents vs 0 clinicians, p<0.05). The top 10 unanswered questions identified at the workshop related to mental health, parental stress, physical activity, obesity, childhood development, behaviour management and screen time.

CONCLUSION

The top 10 most important unanswered research questions in paediatric preventive care from the perspective of parents and clinicians were identified. These research priorities may be important in advancing preventive healthcare for children.