Getting ready for user involvement in a systematic review

Objective  This paper aims to support the critical development of user involvement in systematic reviews by explaining some of the theoretical, ethical and practical issues entailed in 'getting ready' for user involvement.
Background  Relatively few health or social care systematic reviews have actively involved service users. Evidence from other research contexts shows that user involvement can have benefits in terms of improved quality and outcomes, hence there is a need to test out different approaches in order to realize the benefits of user involvement and gain a greater understanding of any negative outcomes.
Design  Setting up a service-user reference group for a review of user involvement in nursing, midwifery and health visiting research involved conceptualizing user involvement, developing a representation framework, identifying and targeting service users and creating a sense of mutuality and reciprocity.
Setting and participants  Recruitment was undertaken across England by two researchers. Members from 24 national consumer organizations were selected to participate in the review.
Main variables studied  Learning was gained about finding ways of navigating consumer networks and organizations, how best to communicate our goals and intentions and how to manage selection and 'rejection' in circumstances where we had stimulated enthusiasm.
Results and conclusions  Involving service users helped us to access information, locate the findings in issues that are important to service users and to disseminate findings. User involvement is about relationships in social contexts: decisions made at the early conceptual level of research design affect service users and researchers in complex and personal ways.     

PREVENTION OF BOTH OSTEOPOROSIS AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE IN PRIMARY CARE

SUMMARY This review describes the importance of both osteoporosis and CHD as causes of morbidity and mortality, and emphasises the commonality of risk factors for the development of both conditions. On the basis of this information, an approach to preventing both diseases is outlined — population-based and personal, as delivered by primary care teams. HRT is seen to have a key role, but the importance of tackling lifestyle issues is also stressed.     

Clinical interventions for venous leg ulcers: Proposals to improve the quality of clinical leg ulcer research

The present status of clinical leg ulcer healing research was reviewed by 25 experts over 2 days on September 28 and 29, 2015. Multiple clinical effectiveness reviews were presented suggesting that published clinical wound healing research often does not meet present (2015) evidence based standards. Specific areas requiring remediation were highlighted and approaches to overcoming existing challenges were proposed. Participants using anonymous voting technology developed an action plan to resolve perceived deficiencies. Statements were accepted if 75% of participants agreed. Older patients with a high frequency of comorbid conditions posed particular difficulties in designing clinical research protocols and better diagnostic categorization is necessary A standardized model template for collecting information about diagnosis and evaluation of the effect of interventions on healing of all types of leg ulcers was considered a high priority. Such a model template could be modified depending on the specific etiology of the leg ulcers. Generally agreed on quantifiable standards to establish degree of morbidity was considered a high priority. There was universal agreement that sources of funding and conflicts of interest needed to be disclosed in presentations and all publications. All clinical research studies should be registered with appropriate authorities. There was substantial enthusiasm for a clinical research network with quality standards for membership and an advisory research core available to investigators. Such a network should be funded and actively managed to insure long‐term viability. The governance of such an entity needs to be established by the wound care community. The present trend to integrate patients into the clinical research process was endorsed and there was enthusiasm to develop patient advocacy for wound healing research.