Citizen and Stakeholder Led Priority Setting for Long-Term Care Research: Identifying Research Priorities Within the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) Program

For which topic were research priorities identified?

elder care

In which location was the research priority setting conducted?

North America - Canada

Why was it conducted at all?

The Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) Program is a partnered program of research in three Western Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba) that aims to improve the quality of care, quality of life, and quality of work life in long-term care homes. The program includes academic researchers, citizens (persons with a dementia, persons caring for someone in long term care), and stakeholders (provincial ministries of health, regional health authorities, operators of long term care homes). This study describes how we used priority setting methods to engage our citizen and stake holder team members to identify research priorities within the TREC program.

What was the objective?

to identify ten priorities for research using the Translating Research in Elder Care data

What was the outcome?

a ranking list of 10 research questions

How long did the research prioritization take?

Survey: October 2018 - December 2018. Workshop: March 2019

Which methods were used to identify research priorities?

JLA method

How were the priorities for research identified exactly?

Step 1: collecting research questions: participants were asked: "What questions do you have about LTC residents?", 840 questions submitted. Step 2: data processing: out-of-scope submissions removed, refining remaining 395 questions, identifying overlap with existing projects and other aspects of feasibility given TREC's data, resulting in final list of 34 research questions. Step 3: workshop: before workshop participants were sent a list of 34 research questions and asked to rank the research questions in order of priority and to email their ranked list back until workshop, during workshop: group discussions with nominal group technique

Which stakeholders took part?

Representatives from provincial ministry of health, regional health authorities, VOICES members (Voices Of Individuals, family and friend Caregivers Educating uS), LTC home owner-operators, and other agencies engaged with TREC (Translating Research in Elder Care). Survey: 72 participants, primarily LTC home managers or administrators (34.7%) and family members or friends of a person living (or who had lived) in a LTC home (23.6%). Workshop: 19 participants.

How were stakeholders recruited?

An online survey was administered to all VOICES members, TREC decision makers (regional health authority leaders, provincial health leaders), LTC owner-operators, and other relevant agencies associated with TREC. Recipients were instructed that they could forward the survey to others in their network who were interested and involved in the TREC program.

Were stakeholders actively involved or did they just participate?

Stakeholders were mere participants of the research prioritization process; they were not actively involved in the process.