University of Toronto, 160-500 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1V7, Canada.
Western University, Health Sciences Building, Rm 222, 1151 Richmond St, London, Ontario, N6A 5B9, Canada.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2021 Oct 30;21(1):1181. doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-07107-7.
Considerable progress has been made to advance the field of knowledge translation to address the knowledge-to-action gap in health care; however, there remains a growing concern that misalignments persist between research being conducted and the issues faced by knowledge users, such as clinicians and health policy makers, who make decisions in the health care context. Integrated knowledge translation (IKT) is a collaborative research model that has shown promise in addressing these concerns. It takes advantage of the unique and shared competencies amongst researchers and knowledge users to ensure relevance of the research process and its outcomes. To date, core competencies have already been identified to facilitate training in knowledge translation more generally but they have yet to be prioritized for IKT more specifically. The primary aim of this study was to recruit a group of researchers and knowledge users to identify and prioritize core competencies for researchers and knowledge users to engage with IKT.
We recruited health care knowledge users (KUs) and researchers with experience and knowledge of IKT for a quantitative, cross-sectional study. We employed a modified Delphi approach consisting of three e-survey rounds to establish consensus on competencies important to IKT for KUs and researchers based on mean rating of importance and agreement between participants.
Nineteen (73%) of the initial 26 participants were researchers (response rate = 41% in the first round; retention in subsequent rounds > 80%). Participants identified a total of 46 competencies important for IKT (18 competencies for KUs, 28 competencies for researchers) under 3 broad domains. Technical research skills were deemed extremely important for researchers, while both groups require teamwork and knowledge translation skills.
This study provides important insight into distinct and overlapping IKT competencies for KUs and researchers. Future work could focus on how these can be further negotiated and contextualized for a wide range of IKT contexts, projects and teams. Greater attention could also be paid to establishing competencies of the entire team to support the research co-production process.
在推进知识转化领域以解决医疗保健领域的知识转化行动差距方面已经取得了相当大的进展；然而，人们仍然越来越担心，在进行的研究与知识使用者（如临床医生和卫生政策制定者）面临的问题之间仍然存在错位，他们在卫生保健背景下做出决策。综合知识转化（IKT）是一种协作研究模式，已被证明在解决这些问题方面具有潜力。它利用研究人员和知识使用者之间的独特和共享能力，确保研究过程及其结果的相关性。迄今为止，已经确定了核心能力，以更广泛地促进知识转化培训，但尚未为 IKT 更具体地确定这些能力的优先级。本研究的主要目的是招募一组研究人员和知识使用者，以确定和优先考虑研究人员和知识使用者参与 IKT 的核心能力。
我们招募了具有 IKT 经验和知识的卫生保健知识使用者（KUs）和研究人员，进行了一项定量、横断面研究。我们采用了一种经过修改的 Delphi 方法，包括三轮电子调查，以根据参与者的重要性平均评分和一致性，就 KU 和研究人员对 IKT 重要的能力达成共识。
最初的 26 名参与者中有 19 名（第一轮的回复率为 41%；随后几轮的保留率>80%）是研究人员。参与者确定了总共 46 项对 IKT 重要的能力（18 项对 KU 重要，28 项对研究人员重要），这些能力属于 3 个广泛的领域。技术研究技能被认为对研究人员极为重要，而两组人员都需要团队合作和知识转化技能。
本研究为 KU 和研究人员的 IKT 独特和重叠能力提供了重要的见解。未来的工作可以集中于如何进一步协商和为广泛的 IKT 背景、项目和团队调整这些能力。还可以更加关注建立整个团队的能力，以支持研究共同制定过程。
