Poster Presentation NSW State Cancer Conference 2023

Building research capacity to enhance care and outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer: The AlliEd Health and Nursing Head And Neck CancEr (ENHANCE) Research Group Experience (#194)

Merran Findlay 1 2 3 4 5 , Sarah Davies 4 , Emma Charters 4 6 , Kate White 1 2 , Haryana Dhillon 7 8 , Jonathan Clark 4 9
  1. Cancer Services, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. Cancer Care Research Unit, Susak Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. The Daffodil Centre, The University of Sydney - a joint venture with Cancer Council NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  4. Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  5. Maridulu Budyari Gumal (SPHERE) Cancer Clinical Academic Group, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  6. Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  7. Centre for Medical Psychology and Evidence-Based Decision-making, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  8. Psycho-Oncology Cooperative Research Group (POCOG), School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  9. Sydney Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Purpose

Individuals with head and neck cancer (HNC) experience profound disease and symptom-related burden requiring access to specialist allied health and nursing supportive care clinicians to ensure optimum care and outcomes for patients and their caregivers. Research-active clinicians bring real-world insights through clinically relevant research questions and are ideally placed to lead implementation of evidence into practice, however, barriers to research participation are numerous. We aim to describe our experience in developing The AlliEd Health and Nursing Head And Neck CancEr (ENHANCE) Research Group to build research capacity and improve patient outcomes in a major HNC centre.

Methods

A framework was employed to evaluate research capacity building in healthcare which captures factors supporting a conducive environment for novice researchers (Cooke, 2005). This two-dimensional framework comprises four structural levels (individual; team; organisational; and network support) and six principles of capacity building (skills and confidence; close to practice; linkages and collaborations; appropriate dissemination; continuity and sustainability; and infrastructure).  Following the establishment of ENHANCE, an assessment of barriers and facilitators to research participation was conducted. Stakeholder consultation informed the group’s vision, strategic priorities, research goals and objectives. Specific strategies were deployed to target barriers to research participation.

Results

The ENHANCE research portfolio encompasses critical aspects throughout the patient care pathway, addressing: i) patients’ needs: information and support; speech, communication and swallowing function; facial nerve paralysis; lymphoedema; cancer-related malnutrition and sarcopenia; and ii) team/systems’ needs: value-based, supportive care-led models of care. Capacity building activities included: education targeting identified need; access to research tools; development of pathways for university research affiliations; matching novice and experienced researchers; and creation of a clinician-researcher fellowship to support protected research time. We will report ENHANCE-led research activities and outputs from January 2020 to May 2023 including: membership, projects; publications; conference presentations competitive funding, key achievements relating to evidence-to practice outcomes, PhD completions and awards.

Conclusion

Building research capacity among supportive care clinician-researchers is essential to realise the many benefits it brings at individual, team and health system levels and society more broadly. Leadership and investment in capacity building are necessary to meet complex supportive care needs and ultimately optimise outcomes for patients with HNC and their caregivers. The ENHANCE experience highlights the value of research-active clinicians leading the integration of evidence-based practices in HNC care.

  1. Cooke J. A framework to evaluate research capacity building in health care. BMC Family Practice. 2005;6(1):44.