Participatory evaluation of municipal obesity prevention clubs in Tehran city: Strengths, challenges, and future direction

Qualitative research explores complex phenomena encountered by clinicians, health care providers, policy makers and consumers. Although partial checklists are available, no consolidated reporting framework exists for any type of qualitative design. To develop a checklist for explicit and comprehensive reporting of qualitative studies (in depth interviews and focus groups). We performed a comprehensive search in Cochrane and Campbell Protocols, Medline, CINAHL, systematic reviews of qualitative studies, author or reviewer guidelines of major medical journals and reference lists of relevant publications for existing checklists used to assess qualitative studies. Seventy-six items from 22 checklists were compiled into a comprehensive list. All items were grouped into three domains: (i) research team and reflexivity, (ii) study design and (iii) data analysis and reporting. Duplicate items and those that were ambiguous, too broadly defined and impractical to assess were removed. Items most frequently included in the checklists related to sampling method, setting for data collection, method of data collection, respondent validation of findings, method of recording data, description of the derivation of themes and inclusion of supporting quotations. We grouped all items into three domains: (i) research team and reflexivity, (ii) study design and (iii) data analysis and reporting. The criteria included in COREQ, a 32-item checklist, can help researchers to report important aspects of the research team, study methods, context of the study, findings, analysis and interpretations.

The increasing use of participatory research (PR) approaches to address pressing public health issues reflects PR's potential for bridging gaps between research and practice, addressing social and environmental justice and enabling people to gain control over determinants of their health. Our critical review of the PR literature culminates in the development of an integrative practice framework that features five essential domains and provides a structured process for developing and maintaining PR partnerships, designing and implementing PR efforts, and evaluating the intermediate and long-term outcomes of descriptive, etiological, and intervention PR studies. We review the empirical and nonempirical literature in the context of this practice framework to distill the key challenges and added value of PR. Advances to the practice of PR over the next decade will require establishing the effectiveness of PR in achieving health outcomes and linking PR practices, processes, and core elements to health outcomes.

The year 2008 marked the 30 year anniversary of Primary Health Care, the health policy of all member nations of the WHO. Community participation was one of the key principles of this policy. This article reviews the experiences of and lessons learned by policy makers, planners and programme managers in attempting to integrate community participation into their health programmes. The lessons, identified in an earlier article by the author, are still relevant today. They help to identify three reasons why integrating community participation into health programmes is so difficult. These reasons are: (1) the dominance of the bio-medical paradigm as the main planning tool for programmes, leading to the view of community participation as an intervention; (2) the lack of in-depth analysis of the perceptions of community members regarding the use of community health workers; and (3) the propensity to use a framework that limits investigation into what works, why and how in community participation in health programmes. Despite these challenges, evidence suggests that community participation has contributed to health improvements at the local level, particularly in poor communities, and will continue to be relevant to programme professionals.