Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant

Knowledge translation is taking knowledge from research and using it in real-world practice. This is a vital strategy to improve health outcomes and strengthen our health care system for the benefit of all Canadians. Knowledge translation (KT) strategies are often used to help put research knowledge into daily practice. Traditional methods of studying KT strategies have provided some insight into their effectiveness, but these approaches offer little understanding of how the KT strategy was put into practice, if the strategy worked or not, or how different factors may have influenced this process. This means that applying these strategies to new settings, organizations or clinical problems is difficult. As a result, researchers are now exploring and evaluating the features of KT strategies and the process of putting them into practice through process evaluation studies. This is necessary to identify the most effective KT strategies and overcome the barriers to practice change in health care. Currently there are no standards to guide process evaluations. Thus, a better understanding and standardized process evaluation design is urgently needed. We aim to 'take stock' of current research approaches by conducting a systematic review of completed process evaluations. The goal of our systematic review is to develop recommendations for designing future process evaluations in knowledge translation.