Qualitative evaluation of a participatory process of adaptation of a health promotion guide

e202106097

Abstract

Background: In the last decades, in Spain, the interest shown towards community participation in health has been growing. However, there are no evidence-based guidelines to promote community participation in health. For this reason, between 2017 and 2018 the AdaptA GPS project was carried out through 10 working groups from 10 autonomous communities, to adapt the NG44 community participation guide in health from the NICE institute in the United Kingdom to the Spanish context. The objective of this article was to evaluate the adaptation process (the aspects to be improved and the resulting learning) of the AdaptA GPS project through the evaluation of its participants.
Methods: A qualitative evaluation was carried out through two questionnaires with open-ended questions, self-administered in each working group, one by the group coordinator and one by the whole working group (between 6 and 10 people per group), and the answers were analysed thematically.
Results: Three main themes were identified that reflect the perspectives of the participants about the adaptation process: positive factors (participatory methodology, collaborative work and diversity of participants), aspects that could be improved (scarce people’s participation and lack of funding) and acquired learning (working in network and the importance of promoting research in this field).
Conclusions: The AdaptA GPS project was an innovative project that favored the creation of networks and synergies, fostering co-production thanks to its participatory approach, which has laid the foundations for future collaborative processes of community engagement.