Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2019_Joomag | Página 51

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FEATURE
The research priorities will be established through a collaborative
project between occupational therapists, service users and carers.
There will be many opportunities for you to get involved as a member
of the steering group, a project partner or responding to the survey
questionnaire.
Your input is vital to help shape the future direction of
occupational therapy research in the UK.
The newly-appointed project lead Jenny Mac Donnell says: ‘I am
looking forward to working on this important project with members
of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, service users and
carers, and to identifying the most important questions in need of an
answer.
‘It’s unusual to work on a project where the outcome is a series of
questions rather than answers, but it’s a great opportunity to set the
future agenda for occupational therapy research.’
A collaborative project
In order to deliver this project fairly, enabling equal input from
professional and lay participants, a robust method is required. This
is one of the reasons that the RCOT has decided to work with the
James Lind Alliance (JLA) on this important project.
JLA is a non-profit initiative, set up in 2004, and its infrastructure
is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). It
has facilitated approximately 100 Priority Setting Partnerships (PSP),
enabling patients, carers and clinicians to work together to identify
and prioritise the questions that they most want research to answer.
JLA PSPs have traditionally focused on specific health conditions
such as dementia, prostate cancer, bipolar or cystic fibrosis. In recent
years, PSPs have started to address broader healthcare topics, such
as physiotherapy, adult social work and palliative care.
More information on the PSPs is available at: www.jla.nihr.ac.uk.
The project will result in the publication of a contemporary ‘Top
10’ list of research priorities for the occupational therapy profession
in the UK, which will define its future research agenda.
What are the benefits of working with the JLA?
Partnering with the JLA offers a number of benefits; it has a well-
established, respected and robust methodology, which has been
successful in a range of settings.
It will provide us with the basis to try to ensure that health
research funders are aware of the issues that matter most to
occupational therapists, service users and carers.
Underpinning their tried and tested approach to priority setting,
JLA has a clear set of principles and a framework which will benefit
the project. They include:
• a transparent process;
• balanced inclusion of occupational therapists, service users and
carers;
• exclusion of non-practitioner researchers from voting on the
priorities because they have other opportunities to influence the
research priorities of funders; and
• exclusion of groups or organisations that have significant
competing interests, for example, pharmaceutical companies.
The balanced and inclusive nature of the methodology and the
nationally recognised approach to identifying research priorities,
which can influence the funding plans of major grant awarding
bodies, were important factors in our decision to partner with JLA.
We will be led through the process by JLA senior adviser,
Katherine Cowan, who will bring an objective view to the project and
will support it with her finely honed facilitation and chairing skills.
‘I’m really looking forward to working with the Occupational
Therapy PSP,’ Katherine says. ‘My role is to be a neutral facilitator of
this process, working closely with the coordinating team at RCOT
and the PSP steering group to ensure that the JLA method is
followed and that its principles are upheld.
‘It’s a great opportunity to engage with occupational therapists
and the people that they treat, in order to understand what they want
research to deliver.’
Dr Jo Watson, RCOT assistant director – education and research,
comments: ‘I am delighted to be working with the James Lind
Alliance in a Priority Setting Partnership to identify the research
questions that occupational therapists, the users of our services and
their carers really want answered to further enhance the quality and
outcomes of the services we provide.
‘I believe that this methodology is robust and will help us to
lay strong foundations on which to build the evidence base for
occupational therapy in and beyond the UK.’
How does a PSP work?
The JLA PSP methodology operates as a seven-stage process.
First, we will establish a steering group with representation from
occupational therapists, service users and carers. If you would like
to be considered to become a member of the steering group then
please complete the expression of interest at: www.rcot.co.uk/otpsp.
The second stage is to use a survey to gather the uncertainties/
unanswered questions. Your input through completing the survey
devised by the steering group and distributing it to your networks will
be crucial to the success of the project.
Stages three and four involve processing the survey responses
and refining the list of uncertainties/unanswered questions that
it generates. Any questions that have already been answered by
research are removed from the list of summary questions.
Stage five, the interim priority setting stage, begins with a
shortlisting survey. The objective is to generate a shorter list of
questions that will be subject to robust discussion and debate, and
prioritised at a final workshop attended by occupational therapists,
service users and carers.
Stage six is the final priority setting workshop, during which the
highest ranked questions from the interim priority setting survey are
discussed. Occupational therapists, service users and carers will be
guided through a nominal group technique to agree the final list of
the ‘Top 10’ priorities.
Finally, RCOT will publish the ‘Top 10’ list of research priorities and
promote them to researchers and funders.
Many of the issues raised will go on to be developed into funded
research projects. For example, the Palliative and End of Life Care
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