Aim(s): The aim of this project is to look at similarities and differences in the importance of outcomes used in trial Core Outcome Sets (COS) for ethnic minority groups regarding type-2 diabetes by testing a method called World Café.
Background: Trials on the same condition often measure different outcomes making it difficult to compare trials. We can solve this problem if studies focusing on a particular condition measure the same outcomes. These agreed set of outcomes are called COS. Patients are increasingly involved in developing COS, but we do not know much about the diversity of patients included.
Different ethnic groups have different needs and perspectives. For example, one study showed that Egyptian patients saw fatigue as physical, while UK patients considered fatigue to have physical and mental effects. This means that research findings may not benefit all ethnic groups. Ethnic minority groups in the UK have poorer health outcomes and access to care (inequalities) than the white majority population and excluding them from research means we are increasing these inequalities. One solution is to include them in COS development to identify outcomes important to them.
Because we do not know the extent to which different ethnic groups see different outcomes as important, we will explore this using the current COS for type-2 diabetes. South Asians are disproportionately affected by type 2 diabetes, therefore we will focus on this condition and conduct our study in two stages. First, we would like to find out the health outcomes important for diabetes. Next, we will compare these outcomes to the existing COS.
Dr Azar Alexander-Sefre - University of Aberdeen
Prof Shaun Treweek - University of Aberdeen and Uppsala
Dr Shoba Dawson - University of Bristol
Disease Category: Endocrine & metabolic
Disease Name: Type 2 Diabetes
Age Range: 18 - 120
Sex: Either
Nature of Intervention: Any
- Patient/ support group representatives
- Patient perspectives
- Prioritising
- Other
- Semi structured discussion
Design and methods used: We will run two sessions. These discussions will take place at small café-style settings using a method called World Café. We will discuss one question or topic per round. At the end of the two sessions, we will ask the groups to identify their top five outcomes. We will identify differences between these and current COS and make recommendations about the use of existing COS with South Asian groups. We will evaluate World Café as a potential method to develop diverse COS.