Background: Involving stakeholders in evidence syntheses may increase relevance and uptake, while reducing health and social inequities. Stakeholders include interested groups and people: health care providers, patients and caregivers, payers of health research, payers of health services, publishers, policymakers, researchers, product makers, program managers, and the public.
Objectives: Our project objectives are to: A) Identify, map, and synthesize qualitative and quantitative findings related to stakeholder engagement in evidence syntheses B) Explore stakeholder perspectives on how stakeholder engagement in evidence syntheses promotes health equity C) Develop equity-oriented guidance on methods for stakeholder engagement in evidence synthesis D) Develop guidance on methods for evaluating stakeholder engagement in evidence syntheses E) Develop a guideline for reporting stakeholder engagement in evidence syntheses (PRISMA Extension).
Methods: We will co-produce 1 scoping review, 3 systematic reviews and 1 evidence map focusing on a) methods, b) barriers and facilitators, c) conflict of interest considerations, d) impacts, and e) equity considerations of stakeholder engagement in evidence synthesis. Next, we will contextualize the findings of step 1 by assessing a sample of evidence syntheses reporting on engaging with stakeholders and through interviews with stakeholders who have been involved in producing evidence syntheses. We will use these findings to develop draft guidance checklists and will assess agreement with each item through an international survey. The guidance checklists will be co-produced and finalized at a consensus meeting with stakeholders. We will co-produce a dissemination plan with our stakeholders and work collaboratively to improve adoption of our guidance by key organizations.
Results: We will present our experiences establishing an international advisory group which will include additional representatives of our 11 stakeholder groups. We will present the preliminary results of the series of reviews.
Conclusions: We aim to develop guidance for stakeholder engagement in health care evidence syntheses. This guidance will be co-produced with stakeholders, including patients, caregivers and the public. This guidance will be of interest to individuals or organizations that conduct evidence reviews, such as Cochrane, Campbell, JBI and GRADE.