Searching for the Impact of Participation in Health and Health Research: Challenges and Methods
Table 1
Questions for reviews of the process of participation.
Type of inquiry
Types of review questions
Implementation inquiry: How do participatory approaches contribute to the process for designing and delivering the intervention or programme?
(i) How were people involved in deciding the components of the intervention? (ii) Were local people consulted or engaged in developing recruitment strategies? Did they do the recruiting? Were there barriers to recruitment that can be attributed to lack of engagement? (iii) Who participated? How many over time? Did the programme attract the target audience? (iv) What was the frequency, duration, and intensity of the intervention? Did it reflect the levels of participation that the target group would consider realistic or appropriate? (v) Did participants actually engage with the intervention? How did participants experience the intervention and did their experiences affect engagement? (vi) What were provider experiences of delivering the intervention? (vii) Was the intervention implemented as planned? Why or why not?
Appropriateness inquiry: To what extent does the approach to participation fit (or is it likely to fit) with the cultural, ethical or equity context?
(i) Is the approach appropriate, acceptable and accessible to people within their local context? (ii) How does the participatory intervention (potentially) impact on equity from both a positive and negative perspective for different population groups? (iii) Do the outcomes match the desired outcomes that are valued by the population? (iv) Are the desired outcomes consistent with people’s priorities and/or beliefs? (v) What is the population’s perception/experience of negative consequences of the intervention?
Effectiveness inquiry: Do participatory approaches work?
(i) What is the effectiveness of a community-based (intervention) compared to (interventions that do not use participatory approaches) for the population? (ii) Do the effects vary in relation to subgroups within the population? (iii) Do effects vary in relation to the country context and history of using participatory approaches in health?
