Grant: Operating Grant

Objectives: Involving the public and patients (P&P) in resource allocation decisions is common in Canada however methods to measure the effectiveness of their involvement have not been developed. We will refine and test a new instrument to measure P&P involvement in resource allocation decisions. Background: P&P involvement in resource allocation committees is important because it addresses fundamental democratic principles regarding how decisions should be made and who should make them. Our research has shown that the objectives of P&P involvement in Canadian public drug resource allocation decision making are often unclear to stakeholders, committee members, and policy makers. Consequently, evaluation of such involvement has not occurred. Research Plan: To date, we interviewed key stakeholders, completed a literature review and reviewed drug resource allocation committee documents to develop a model for understanding the purpose, roles, responsibilities, and resources for P&P involvement. We used this model to develop nine objectives for judging the effectiveness of P&P involvement. This will form the basis of our instrument. Our next steps are to refine and assess the instrument. We plan on refining the instrument by reviewing the preliminary items with our knowledge user partner, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), to ensure that no domains are missing. We will conduct item reduction of our instrument using stakeholder focus groups. We will revise the instrument according to the feedback from stakeholders and CADTH. We also will assess the instrument's sensibility, validity and test-retest reliability. Relevance: Meaningful P&P involvement in public resource allocation decisions is important for establishing effective democratic decision making mechanisms. Our instrument is relevant for decision-makers who are addressing issues of prioritization within constrained budgets while ensuring accountability to Canadians.