Systematic Reviews and Client Participation March 2, 2007
Posted by rickbarth in Uncategorized.add a comment
Michael Reisch’s useful observation about social justice as a process as well as an outcome encouraged me to give this material from the UK–that includes examples of engaging interested non-research input (especially that of clients and carers)–a new look.
This report, Collection of Examples of Service User and Carer Participation in Systematic Reviews, http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/researchresources/rr02.pdf, offers examples from HIV prevention, infant screening, and ECT. Each describes the strategies for recruiting and involving clients and caregivers–optimally, it seems, at the conceptual stage, during the review (as decisions are made about which information to weight in what way), and at the point of developing conclusions. Having written many unsystematic reviews, I can say that I have almost always failed to do this, but the idea is important and intriguing and offers an opportunity for an additional measure of social justice (and valuable input) in our research work.
