Anderson, R., Booth, A. orcid.org/0000-0003-4808-3880, Eastwood, A. et al. (11 more authors) (2021) Synthesis for health services and policy : case studies in the scoping of reviews. Health Services and Delivery Research, 9 (15). pp. 1-84. ISSN 2050-4349
Abstract
Background
For systematic reviews to be rigorous, deliverable and useful, they need a well-defined review question. Scoping for a review also requires the specification of clear inclusion criteria and planned synthesis methods. Guidance is lacking on how to develop these, especially in the context of undertaking rapid and responsive systematic reviews to inform health services and health policy.
Objective
This report describes and discusses the experiences of review scoping of three commissioned research centres that conducted evidence syntheses to inform health and social care organisation, delivery and policy in the UK, between 2017 and 2020.
Data sources
Sources included researcher recollection, project meeting minutes, e-mail correspondence with stakeholders and scoping searches, from allocation of a review topic through to review protocol agreement.
Methods
We produced eight descriptive case studies of selected reviews from the three teams. From case studies, we identified key issues that shape the processes of scoping and question formulation for evidence synthesis. The issues were then discussed and lessons drawn.
Findings
Across the eight diverse case studies, we identified 14 recurrent issues that were important in shaping the scoping processes and formulating a review’s questions. There were ‘consultative issues’ that related to securing input from review commissioners, policy customers, experts, patients and other stakeholders. These included managing and deciding priorities, reconciling different priorities/perspectives, achieving buy-in and engagement, educating the end-user about synthesis processes and products, and managing stakeholder expectations. There were ‘interface issues’ that related to the interaction between the review team and potential review users. These included identifying the niche/gap and optimising value, assuring and balancing rigour/reliability/relevance, and assuring the transferability/applicability of study evidence to specific policy/service user contexts. There were also ‘technical issues’ that were associated with the methods and conduct of the review. These were choosing the method(s) of synthesis, balancing fixed and fluid review questions/components/definitions, taking stock of what research already exists, mapping versus scoping versus reviewing, scoping/relevance as a continuous process and not just an initial stage, and calibrating general compared with specific and broad compared with deep coverage of topics.
Limitations
As a retrospective joint reflection by review teams on their experiences of scoping processes, this report is not based on prospectively collected research data. In addition, our evaluations were not externally validated by, for example, policy and service evidence users or patients and the public.
Conclusions
We have summarised our reflections on scoping from this programme of reviews as 14 common issues and 28 practical ‘lessons learned’. Effective scoping of rapid, responsive reviews extends beyond information exchange and technical procedures for specifying a ‘gap’ in the evidence. These considerations work alongside social processes, in particular the building of relationships and shared understanding between reviewers, research commissioners and potential review users that may be reflective of consultancy, negotiation and co-production models of research and information use.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Authors. This work was produced by Anderson et al. under the terms of a commissioning contract issued by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. This is an Open Access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaption in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. For attribution the title, original author(s), the publication source – NIHR Journals Library, and the DOI of the publication must be cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NIHR Evaluation Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre NIHRDH-HS&DR/16/47/17 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Sep 2021 09:05 |
Last Modified: | 11 Sep 2021 09:32 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | National Institute for Health Research |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3310/hsdr09150 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:178058 |