Instituto Veredas, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Doebem, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2023 Mar 9;18(3):e0282808. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282808. eCollection 2023.
Theory of Change (ToC) has become an established approach to design and evaluate interventions. While ToC should-in line with the growing international focus on evidence-informed health decision-making-consider explicit approaches to incorporate evidence, there is limited guidance on how this should be done. This rapid review aims to identify and synthesize the available literature on how to systematically use research evidence when developing or adapting ToCs in the health sector.
A rapid review methodology using a systematic approach, was designed. Eight electronic databases were consulted to search for peer-reviewed and gray publications detailing tools, methods, and recommendations promoting the systematic integration of research evidence in ToCs. The included studies were compared, and the findings summarized qualitatively into themes to identify key principles, stages, and procedures, guiding the systematic integration of research evidence when developing or revising a ToC.
This review included 18 studies. The main sources from which evidence was retrieved in the ToC development process were institutional data, literature searches, and stakeholder consultation. There was a variety of ways of finding and using evidence in ToC. Firstly, the review provided an overview of existing definitions of ToC, methods applied in ToC development and the related ToC stages. Secondly, a typology of 7 stages relevant for evidence integration into ToCs was developed, outlining the types of evidence and research methods the included studies applied for each of the proposed stages.
This rapid review adds to the existing literature in two ways. First, it provides an up-to-date and comprehensive review of the existing methods for incorporating evidence into ToC development in the health sector. Second, it offers a new typology guiding any future endeavors of incorporating evidence into ToCs.
变革理论（ToC）已成为设计和评估干预措施的一种既定方法。虽然 ToC 应该考虑到明确的方法来纳入证据，以符合越来越多的国际关注证据为基础的卫生决策，但关于如何做到这一点的指导有限。本快速审查旨在确定和综合现有文献，了解如何在卫生部门制定或调整 ToC 时系统地使用研究证据。
采用系统方法设计了快速审查方法。查阅了八个电子数据库，以搜索详细说明工具、方法和建议的同行评议和灰色出版物，这些工具、方法和建议旨在促进将研究证据系统地纳入 ToC 中。对纳入的研究进行了比较，并将研究结果进行了定性总结，形成主题，以确定指导在制定或修订 ToC 时系统地整合研究证据的关键原则、阶段和程序。
本审查包括 18 项研究。在 ToC 开发过程中检索证据的主要来源是机构数据、文献检索和利益相关者咨询。在 ToC 中发现和使用证据的方式多种多样。首先，审查提供了对现有 ToC 定义、ToC 开发中应用的方法以及相关 ToC 阶段的概述。其次，开发了一个 7 个阶段的分类法，用于将证据纳入 ToC，概述了纳入研究为每个提出的阶段应用的证据类型和研究方法。
本快速审查在两个方面补充了现有文献。首先，它提供了对现有将证据纳入卫生部门 ToC 开发方法的最新和全面的综述。其次，它提供了一个新的分类法，指导未来将证据纳入 ToC 的任何努力。
