title: A systematic review of stakeholder engagement in comparative effectiveness and patient-centered outcomes research.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We conducted a review of the peer-reviewed literature since 2003 to catalogue reported methods of stakeholder engagement in comparative effectiveness research and patient-centered outcomes research.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We worked with stakeholders before, during and after the review was conducted to: define the primary and key research questions; conduct the literature search; screen titles, abstracts and articles; abstract data from the articles; and analyze the data. The literature search yielded 2,062 abstracts. The review was conducted on 70 articles that reported on stakeholder engagement in individual research projects or programs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Reports of stakeholder engagement are highly variable in content and quality. We found frequent engagement with patients, modestly frequent engagement with clinicians, and infrequent engagement with stakeholders in other key decision-making groups across the healthcare system. Stakeholder engagement was more common in earlier (prioritization) than in later (implementation and dissemination) stages of research. The roles and activities of stakeholders were highly variable across research and program reports.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To improve on the quality and content of reporting, we developed a 7-Item Stakeholder Engagement Reporting Questionnaire. We recommend three directions for future research: 1) descriptive research on stakeholder-engagement in research; 2) evaluative research on the impact of stakeholder engagement on the relevance, transparency and adoption of research; and 3) development and validation of tools that can be used to support stakeholder engagement in future work.
authors.affiliation: The RAND Corporation, 20 Park Plaza, Suite 920, Boston, MA, 02116, USA, tconcann@rand.org.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Concannon
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fuster
authors.forename: Tully
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saunders
authors.forename: Kamal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: John B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Laurel K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Leslie
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lau
mesh_terms: D003256:Community Participation / Q000379:methods; D057186:Comparative Effectiveness Research / Q000379:methods*; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D063868:Patient Outcome Assessment; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000379:methods; D012107:Research Design