Consumer and community involvement in health research: evaluation of researcher training workshops

Objectives and importance of study Evaluate the effectiveness of training workshops aiming to improve researchers' consumer and community involvement (CCI) related awareness, attitudes, and behaviours, and capture remaining barriers to CCI. Design Cross-sectional questionnaires. Setting University of Queensland researchers attending a CCI training workshop, facilitated by The Kids Institute between 2017 and 2023. Methods Participants were invited to complete two surveys with multiple choice and open-field items: (i) short term evaluation immediately following workshop attendance capturing reactions (ii) long-term evalution up to 6 years following attendance, including retrospective and current perceptions of confidence, motivation, capability, opportunity and reported behaviours. Survey items mapped to the Kirkpatrick model for training evaluations (reaction, learning, behaviour, and results) and COM-B model of behaviour change (capability, opportunity, and motivation). Multiple-choice responses were summarised with descriptive statistics and Chi-square analysis while open-field responses were mined qualitatively with content analysis. Results 17/183 and 104/240 individuals completed/partially completed Surveys 1 and 2 respectively. Survey 1 comments captured satisfaction with content and facilitation, and improved learning (Kirkpatrick's 'reaction' and 'learning'). Most Survey 2 participants were satisfied/highly satisfied with the workshop (n = 82/101, 81%) and agreed CCI was relevant (n = 88/90, 98%) or valuable (n = 86/89, 97%) to their research (COM-B 'motivation'). When completing Survey 2, a minority (n = 17/90, 19%) felt they were confident/very confident in implementing CCI prior to the workshop, which increased significantly post-workshop (n = 54/89, 61%) (P < 0.05). Participants reported moderate to high levels of capability (n = 78/83, 94%) and capacity (73/83, 88%) implementing CCI. The proportion of researchers implementing CCI in their research increased from 65% (n = 59/91) to 78% (n = 71/91) in the months/years post-workshop (P < 0.05). Researchers reported consistent CCI throughout the research journey and diverse models of involvement. Participants identified financial and administrative institutional barriers to optimal CCI implementation in research. These results align with all elements of the Kirkpatrick and COM-B models. Conclusions CI training improved researchers' CCI-related awareness, confidence and behaviours. However, the remaining barriers to optimal CCI implementation included logistical and institutional barriers, which reflect the opportunity element of COM-B. Thus, while CCI training of researchers is valuable and effective, institutions need to capitalise on these benefits with administrative and financial support.