Strengthening Clinician-Researchers' Communication and Knowledge Translation Skills: An Innovative Game Model From the Breathe Well Group
Journal
Inquiry : The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing
Date Issued
2024-09-12
Author(s)
Williams, Siân
Fernandes, Genevie
Adab, Peymané
Adams, Rachel
de Sousa, Jaime Correia
Chi, Chunhua
Dickens, Andrew P
Enocson, Alexandra
Farley, Amanda
Maglakelidze, Mariam
Maglakelidze, Tamaz
Martins, Sonia
Sitch, Alice
Stelmach, Rafael
Turner, Alice
Pan, Zihan
Pang, Hui
Zhang, Jianxin
Jordan, Rachel E
DOI
10.1177/00469580241273178
Abstract
Communication is a core component of a clinician's role; however, when clinicians conduct research, communicating the emerging findings and recommendations to different types of stakeholders can be unfamiliar territory. Communicating research to advocate for change can be even more challenging. Clinician researchers seeking to be agents for change need to conceive and craft specific, evidence-based messages and communicate these effectively to different stakeholders to negotiate action. As part of a global health research program, we developed and tested a novel game-based model to strengthen the communication skills of clinician researchers, from 4 countries, for improving services for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This model focused on communication with 3 key stakeholder groups for knowledge translation: Patients/carers, healthcare providers and policy makers/healthcare managers. Delivered through a series of facilitated, online meetings, this model consisted of 2 parts: developing and rehearsing advocacy messages with coaching support, and then testing them with a panel of 3 representative stakeholders, and an audience of fellow researchers. All the country teams reported increased confidence in crafting advocacy messages for specific stakeholders and have applied lessons learned from the model. Delivering this model within a global health research program requires mentoring, time, commitment, resources and translation support to address language barriers. It offers an exemplar to build the communication skills of clinician and non-clinician researchers so that they can go beyond dissemination toward translation of evidence into policy and practice.