RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Effective stakeholder engagement in health research is increasingly being recognised and promoted as an important pathway to closing the gap between knowledge production and its use in health systems. However, little is known about its process and impacts, particularly in low-and middle-income countries. This opinion piece draws on the stakeholder engagement experiences from a global health research programme on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) led by clinician researchers in Brazil, China, Georgia and North Macedonia, and presents the process, outcomes and lessons learned. MAIN BODY: Each country team was supported with an overarching engagement protocol and mentored to develop a tailored plan. Patient involvement in research was previously limited in all countries, requiring intensive efforts through personal communication, meetings, advisory groups and social media. Accredited training programmes were effective incentives for participation from healthcare providers; and aligning research findings with competing policy priorities enabled interest and dialogue with decision-makers. The COVID-19 pandemic severely limited possibilities for planned engagement, although remote methods were used where possible. Planned and persistent engagement contributed to shared knowledge and commitment to change, including raised patient and public awareness about COPD, improved skills and practice of healthcare providers, increased interest and support from clinical leaders, and dialogue for integrating COPD services into national policy and practice. CONCLUSION: Stakeholder engagement enabled relevant local actors to produce and utilise knowledge for small wins such as improving day-to-day practice and for long-term goals of equitable access to COPD care. For it to be successful and sustained, stakeholder engagement needs to be valued and integrated throughout the research and knowledge generation process, complete with dedicated resources, contextualised and flexible planning, and commitment.
Assuntos
Países em Desenvolvimento , Pandemias , Humanos , Brasil , República da Macedônia do Norte , República da GeórgiaRESUMO
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are leading causes of hospitalisation and death in the city of Sao Bernardo do Campo. The municipality had difficulties in sustaining a pulmonology specialist team. Local policy has strengthened the knowledge of the primary care teams to improve the management of these diseases. Our aim is to pilot the implementation of an educational intervention based on collaborative care focused on reducing respiratory-related referrals. We implemented 'matrix support': a Brazilian collaborative educational intervention promoting specialist training and support for primary care physicians in three health territories with the highest number of referrals. Clinicians and nurses from primary care attended an 8-h workshop. The backlog of respiratory referrals was prioritised, where Asthma and COPD represented 70% of referral reasons. Initially, pulmonologists held joint consultations with physicians and nurses; as confidence grew, these were replaced by round-table note-based case discussions. The primary outcome was the number of asthma and COPD referrals. Almost all primary healthcare professionals in the three areas (132 of 157-87%) were trained; 360 patients were discussed, including 220 joint consultations. The number of respiratory referrals dropped from 290 (the year before matrix support) to 134 (the year after) (P<0.05). Referrals for asthma/COPD decreased from 13.4 to 5.4 cases per month (P=0.09) and for other lung diseases from 10.8 to 5.3 cases per month (P<0.05). Knowledge scores showed a significant improvement (P<0.001). Matrix-support collaborative care was well-accepted by primary care professionals associated with improved knowledge and reduced respiratory referrals. The initiative attracted specialists to the region overcoming historical recruitment problems.