Results Summary and Professional Abstract
Related Articles
Videos
The Community Resource Specialist Role
Produced by GroupHealth Research Institute
Peer-Review Summary
Peer review of PCORI-funded research helps make sure the report presents complete, balanced, and useful information about the research. It also confirms that the research has followed PCORI’s Methodology Standards. During peer review, experts who were not members of the research team read a draft report of the research. These experts may include a scientist focused on the research topic, a specialist in research methods, a patient or caregiver, and a healthcare professional. Reviewers do not have conflicts of interest with the study.
The peer reviewers point out where the draft report may need revision. For example, they may suggest ways to improve how the research team analyzed its results or reported its conclusions. Learn more about PCORI’s peer-review process here.
In response to peer review, the PI made changes including
- Making major revisions in the structure and language of the report to make sure that the report clearly conveyed what happened in the study. The researchers revised much of the language of the report so that it would be understandable for the general scientist audience, with appropriate specificity around methods used and study outcomes.
- Providing detailed descriptions, in a newly created section on patient and stakeholder engagement, of how patients and other stakeholders affected the development of this study.
- Explaining the reasons why the researchers changed the approach for collecting patient surveys. Because of difficulties in sampling patients from intervention and control clinics as intended, the researchers used mailed surveys to all patients who had access to the intervention, regardless of whether they used it. The reviewers expressed concern that this type of data collection could lead to a biased sample of respondents.
- Acknowledging the limitations of the intervention and the study, specifically that the intervention required considerable resources and was underutilized by patients.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures
View the COI disclosure form.
Project Details
^Group Health Cooperative was purchased by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington.