To disseminate is to ‘spread information widely’ – but how well do we do this? Dissemination of three linked Cochrane Reviews

Session: 

Oral session: Knowledge translation and communicating evidence (6)

Date: 

Monday 17 September 2018 - 14:20 to 14:40

Location: 

Pentland Auditorium

All authors in correct order:

Abbott R1, Newlove Delgado T1, Martin A2, Bethel A1, Whear R1, Logan S1, Thompson-Coon J1
1 University of Exeter Medical School, United Kingdom
2 Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom
Presenting author and contact person

Presenting author:

Rebecca Abbott

Contact person:

Rebecca Abbott
Tamsin Newlove-Delgado
Alice Martin
Alison Bethel
Rebecca Whear
Joanna Thompson-Coon
Stuart Logan
Abstract text
Background: We completed three Cochrane Reviews of effectiveness for dietary, pharmacological and psychosocial treatments for recurrent abdominal pain in children. Each review comprised approximately 15,000 words; a total of 45,000 words. Cochrane Reviews represent the gold standard in terms of transparent and robust summaries of treatment effectiveness, but findings will only be used by patients and healthcare professionals if they can be shared in accessible and useful formats.

Objectives: To increase the reach of three linked Cochrane Reviews.

Methods: We produced (or contributed to) five additional outputs:
1) a blog post on Evidently Cochrane;
2) a presentation at a regional paediatric conference;
3) a summary article in a clinical journal;
4) a plain language summary available to download from our website; and
5) a short video-scribe animation.
Representatives of the intended audiences were involved in all outputs. Healthcare professionals wrote or provided feedback on the blog post, summary article and presentation, and the PenCLAHRC Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) team advised on the plain language summary and video scribe animation. Readers were signposted to the Cochrane Reviews for full details.

Results: At the time of submission, the three Cochrane reviews have Altmetric scores between 47 and 63, with the majority of the score attributable to Twitter activity; each has been cited 3 or 4 times. This level of activity is not sufficient to reach patients and healthcare professionals adequately and does not do justice to the time and resources spent producing the reviews. The Evidently Cochrane blog has been accessed 562 times. The conference presentation was delivered to over 100 paediatricians. The summary article was published in February 2018 and the video scribe animation is in the final stages of production. Further details of the reach of all these products will be available at the Colloquium.

Conclusions: Quantification of the additional value of each dissemination approach is not straightforward, but each has been well received by end-users. Our reflections are positive and underline the need to maintain dissemination efforts beyond the publication of the review.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: Healthcare professionals and members of the PPI team were involved in the production of all outputs.

Relevance to patients and consumers: 

Recurrent abdominal pain, or RAP, is a term used for unexplained episodes of stomachache or abdominal pain in children. RAP is a common condition, affecting up to 1 in 4 children. The lack of guidelines or consensus on management of patients with RAP means that treatment is inconsistent. Healthcare practitioners and families need to be able to access evidence about how best to treat children with RAP. With help from our public and patient involvement group, and our two practising paediatricians on the review team, we decided to try different ways to get the message from our reviews of effectiveness to the people that mattered.