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. 2023 Mar 17;18(3):e0281308. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281308

Table 2. Research Question Importance Tool (RQIT).

Dimension Category Descriptor/definition of the category
A. Extent to which the question is important to patients and other health decision-makers A1 Not shown to be important to either patients or decision-makers No clinician or relevant healthcare consumer consultation
A2 Shown to be important to health decision-makers but not patients Relevant healthcare consumers not consulted or do not rate research question highly
A3 Shown to be important to patients but not decision-makers Relevant healthcare consumers rate research question highly but other health decision makers do not
A4 Shown to be important to both patients and decision-makers Relevant healthcare consumers and other health decision makers (not researchers only) rate the research question highly.
B. That it addresses an area of high patient burden B1 Low patient burden Mild symptoms and little or no associated disability
B2 Medium patient burden Moderate symptoms and some disability
B3 High patient burden Significantly disabling, associated with mortality risk or no effective treatments available
C. That it addresses an area of high social burden C1 Condition is rare (<0.1% prevalence)
C2 Condition is somewhat common (0.1–1% prevalence)
C3 Condition is common (1–10% prevalence)
C4 Condition is highly prevalent (>10% prevalence)
D. Potential reduction in patient and/or social burden due to (clinical or implementation) intervention D1 Symptomatic treatment only and small potential effect size Intervention has potential to only improve patient symptoms to a modest degree (anticipated effect size <1)
D2 Symptomatic treatment and large potential effect size Intervention has potential to only improve patient symptoms to a substantial degree (anticipated effect size >1)
D3 Potential for intervention to treat both symptoms and underlying disease pathology There is a plausible case that some pathophysiological consequences of disease (eg anatomical damage) could be prevented
D4 Potential for cure or fundamental alteration of disease course There is a plausible case that the disease could be rendered entirely non-active with minimal risk of recurrence, with or without ongoing treatment
E. Potential scalability and uptake of intervention E1 Low potential for scalability and uptake Prohibitive costs to patient or healthcare system, major systems restructure; and substantial behaviour/belief change by clinicians or patients
E2 High potential for uptake but low scalability Minimal behaviour/belief change by clinicians or patients required but prohibitive costs to healthcare system, major systems restructure
E3 High potential for scalability but low potential for uptake Immediately feasible with minimal changes required to healthcare system but requires a substantial change in patients/clinicians beliefs or behaviour or has high direct patient costs
E4 High potential for both scalability and uptake Immediately feasible and minimal behaviour/belief change by clinicians or patients required
F. Extent to which the question addresses health equity F1 No information No attempt to address health equity
F2 Not relevant Discussed using Progress Plus items (O’Neill et al., 2014) but intervention not relevant or appropriate
F3 Somewhat (may have some application to reduce health disparity) Intervention shown to have some potential application to improving health equity issues
F4 Reducing health disparity is the focus The intervention is explicitly designed to improve health equity issues