SESSION KEYWORDS: Community Collaboration, Patient-Oriented Research

SESSION ABSTRACT

Purposeful knowledge dissemination planning is a central tenet of a patient-oriented or community-based approach to research. Granting agencies, governments, and healthcare organizations are becoming increasingly more attentive to the ethical considerations that exist alongside knowledge dissemination work. This has resulted not only in a need for support for many researchers who might have less experience in this area, but for research ethics boards who may need support in identifying and inquiring about ethical issues related to knowledge dissemination. We developed a tool to support the work of research ethics boards and conducted a validation process (this was presented at CAREB in 2022). REB expert input resulted in very helpful feedback that suggested we design two separate guidance tools. The first tool, which is heavily based on the original tool that underwent validation, is meant to support research ethics boards with identifying and inquiring about possible gaps in knowledge dissemination plans as stated in research ethics applications, that could impact whether proposed research projects are ethically sound. The second tool is meant to assist researchers and trainees in creating ethical knowledge dissemination plans to support them with closing the loop and sharing back findings with knowledge users and community partners. Our goal is to strengthen knowledge dissemination planning at the research planning stage, prompt discussion about what makes an ethical knowledge dissemination plan, and encourage researchers to think deeper about disseminating the results of their work. We would also like to report back on the interesting progression of and learnings from this project, as it has been an iterative process, and has changed over time based on knowledge user feedback. It is a true example of developing a knowledge translation support product with the engagement of various knowledge users and audiences in mind.