Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Improving the quality of healthcare services for children with disabilities through the implementation of knowledge into clinical practice remains a challenge. The use of knowledge brokers (KB), a person that aims to develop relationships with, network between, and link to producers and users of knowledge, and sources of information, is reported to be an effective strategy. The success of this strategy relies on the KB's ability to adapt to multiple stakeholders' and their ever-changing needs. With the proliferation and popularity of virtual contexts (e.g. e-forums) in transferring knowledge, it is essential to understand the KB role in these virtual contexts. This study aimed to describe the role of, and the strategies used by four KBs involved in an e-learning forum for physiotherapists working with children with a childhood disability. Through an analysis of the KBs online messages, this study identified and described three roles, Context Architect, Knowledge Sharing Promoter, and a Linkage Creator. These results provide an initial description of a role and strategies that could hold promise in facilitating knowledge and research implementation into practice through e-forums and ultimately lead to improved the quality of health service provision of children with childhood disabilities.