Looking back at 2017
In this newsletter:
CERQual at Fiocruz, Brasilia, Brazil
A group of enthusiastic Brazilian researchers have been leading the introduction of GRADE-CERQual to South America with the aim of disseminating the approach and testing it out on reviews being carried out in Brazil and regionally around South America.
The group is led by Jorge Otávio Maia Barreto (Fiocruz, Brasilia) and includes Maria Sharmila Alina de Sousa (Federal University of São Paulo and Fiocruz, Brasilia), Airton Tetelbom Stein (Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre), Ananyr Porto Fajardo (Conceição Hospital Group, Rio Grande do Sul) and Vicky Nogueira Pileggi (University of São Paulo). In the last few months the group has achieved two major milestones 1) Translation to Portuguese of key publications concerning CERQual, and 2) Holding an in-person CERQual training workshop in Brasilia, Brazil. The group has been liaising closely with Megan Wainwright and Simon Lewin of the GRADE-CERQual Coordinating group for support with these and future activities.
CERQual in Portuguese
Led by Jorge Barreto, the collaboration with the GRADE-CERQual Project Group started formally in August 2016 when the Brazilian group began translation of both the article by Lewin et al. (2015) “Using qualitative evidence in decision making for health and social interventions: an approach to assess confidence in findings from qualitative evidence syntheses” (PLoS Medicine) and Chapter 15 from the WHO handbook for guideline development (WHO, 2014) entitled “Using evidence from qualitative research to develop WHO guidelines”. When these translations are available online the links will be circulated. In addition to these substantive documents, the group has also translated the introductory webinar and the workshop slides.
In-Person CERQual Workshop in Brazil
Fiocruz hosted a workshop on 28 June 2017 in Brasilia to introduce the GRADE-CERQual approach and offer local and regional participants (n=32) an opportunity to acquaint themselves with this approach to assessing confidence in the findings of qualitative evidence syntheses. The workshop was delivered by Megan Wainwright (member of GRADE-CERQual Coordinating Group and Postdoctoral Research Fellow from University of Cape Town, South Africa), with the assistance of Sharmila Sousa and Vicky Pileggi. The day before Dr. Wainwright also delivered a training workshop in the use of NVivo11 for qualitative data analysis and qualitative evidence synthesis.
Tomás Pantoja Calderón (Pontificia Universidad Católica,Chile) and Evelina Chapman (Ministerio de Salud de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina) were among the attendees. Participants of the GRADE-CERQual workshop came from both quantitative and qualitative research backgrounds, including representatives from the Brazilian Ministry of Health and various private and public health institutions from all Brazilian regions. Therefore, despite the international perspective, both workshops focused on the Brazilian context as the intended audience for the dissemination and diffusion of the GRADE-CERQual approach. This is in line with Fiocruz Brasilia School of Governance in Health’s mandate to promote and support both capacity building within the scope of the Brazilian Network for Evidence Informed Policy-Making (EVIPNet/Brazil) and the Brazilian Network for Health Technology Assessment (REBRATS).
Next steps
Given the successful workshop experience and the great interest of participants to continue developing activities to implement as well as establish research collaborations to use and assess the GRADE-CERQual approach in Brazil, this partnership will now support both development and implementation of introductory webinars as Q&A webinars. This will not only provide further training to interested participants but also introduce the GRADE-CERQual approach to other Brazilian audiences, facilitated by the CERQual Brazil group in Portuguese with the supervision of members from the GRADE-CERQual coordinating group. Jorge Barreto and Sharmila Sousa from the CERQual Brazil group are already planning to apply the GRADE-CERQual approach to a qualitative evidence synthesis being carried out at Fiocruz Brasilia in partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of Health. A qualitative evidence synthesis is being developed to support the improvement of technology management in SUS (Public Health System) and the construction of a platform for translation, exchange and social appropriation of knowledge.
Written by: Sharmila Sousa and Megan Wainwright
CERQual Training at CEDES, Buenos Aires
Following a successful workshop at Fiocruz, Brasilia (above), and thanks to Evelina Chapman who made the introductions, Silvina Ramos at the Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (CEDES, www.cedes.org) [Centre for the Study of the State and Society] invited Megan Wainwright to deliver a one-day CERQual workshop in Spanish at their centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Megan was on a five-month fieldwork trip to Uruguay and thanks to the generous support from CEDES and organizational support from Cecilia Straw (CEDES), she was able to make the journey across the Rio de la Plata to deliver the workshop on August 18th, 2017.
CEDES is a non-profit research centre founded in 1975 and was designated a Center of Excellence in 2001 by the Argentinian Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation. CEDES researchers conduct their own independent research as well as commissioned research and training activities for other organizations and government.
The CERQual workshop included seven researchers and postgraduates of CEDES conducting primarily qualitative research on topics such as women’s sexual and reproductive health, cancer and tuberculosis. The intimate nature of the workshop created a vibrant space for discussion around CERQual, qualitative evidence synthesis and qualitative research in health more generally. The workshop was also an excellent opportunity to discuss the terminology of CERQual in Spanish, with the group coming to agreement on some translations. The group at CEDES is hoping to incorporate qualitative evidence synthesis and CERQual into its future activities.
CERQual Training in Porto Alegre, Brazil
Following the successful workshop at Fiocruz Brasilia, attendees Ananyr Porto Fajardo and Christine Warmling organizeda a CERQual workshop delivered by Megan Wainwright for their postgraduate students in the Health Technology Assessment programme at the Grupo Hospitalar Conceicao and the Teaching in Health programme in the medical school of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The workshop was attended by an enthusiastic bunch of students, many of whom were practicing health professionals. The activity was part of Dr. Fajardo and Dr. Warmling's commitment to increasing the status and appeal of qualitative evidence among their students and within their institutions.
CERQual Taining at the McGill Qualitative Health Research Group, Montreal
The McGill Qualitative Research Group, chaired by Dr. Mary Ellen Macdonald hosted a CERQual workshop in October 2017 attended by researchers from various social science and library science fields highly experienced in primary qualitative research and reviews. It was a great afternoon of dynamic discussion and group work applying CERQual to a ficticious case.
CERQual Project Group Workshop at the Brocher Foundation, Switzerland
The CERQual coordinating team and a dozen other members of the project group met at the Brocher Foundation Centre in Hermance on the edge of lake Geneva to take the CERQual approach a step further in November 2017. The three-day workshop, funded by the Brocher Foundation, brought together reviewers applying CERQual and decision-makers and guideline-developpers using CERQual assessment.
It was a unique and exciting opportunity to hear from recent users of CERQual on both the synthesis producers and users. We came away with important insights for how CERqual is being used, how we can improve users' experiences and priorities for future research in the translation of qualitative evidence for decision-making. Thank you to all who joined and to the Brocher Foundation for its support.
