Open Collections

Blazey, Paul

University of British Columbia

Background: Consensus-methods are used to gain agreement when evidence is absent or conflicting. Due to its complex nature patellofemoral pain (PFP) research has often utilized consensus-methods to make best-practice recommendations in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence. There has been little scrutiny of which consensus methods have been used to reach agreement, or the rigor with which they have been applied. Objective: Primary objective was to map the methods used to gain and/or measure consensus within PFP or patellofemoral OA (PF-OA), and develop a novel framework through which to assess the rigor of consensus development methods. My secondary objective was to assess whether consensus statements within PFP/PF-OA have had research-impact or impact on policy. Design: Online databases were searched from inception to May 2022 to identify consensus-, or position-statements, or clinical practice guidelines that have used consensus-methods. A novel deductive framework was applied to map the methods used against potential measures of rigor in consensus development. Results: 22 statements were identified. Three groups (14% of consensus-developers reported the experience of panelists, and two (9% defined the panels desired level of expertise. One group (5%) included a patient on their panel. Medical doctors (N=11 – 50%), orthopaedic surgeons (N=11 – 50%) and physical therapists (N=8 – 36%) were the professions most frequently represented and the USA (N=16 – 73%) was the most frequently represented country. 80% of statements (8 of the 10 who had clear gender information) included more men than women. Seven (32%) reported using an established method of consensus measurement/development, and six (27%) reported using systematic methods to inform consensus process or identify relevant evidence gaps in the existing research. Citations of published consensus statements ranged from 11 to 1778, Altmetrics from 4 to 529, and policy-citations from 0 to 23. Conclusions: Consensus statements on PFP and PF-OA have largely failed to use recognized methods of consensus development (e.g. Delphi, RAND-UCLA, Nominal Group Technique, Expert Lens) to generate their recommendations. Panels have lacked diversity (geographic, gender, and professional). Systematic methods have rarely been used to identify evidence gaps and consensus-developers have failed to consistently define and measure what consensus is among their panels.

Text

2024-09-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/84198

Rehabilitation Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/