Table 3.
Community Consultation method-specific evaluations
| Method | # sites using method | How helpful? (median)* | Worth resources? (median)* | Ways helpful | Problems |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open meeting | 10 | 3 | 2 | Broad audience, direct feedback, assessment of support | Poor attendance; Difficulty explaining the study/having effective conversation; Can still be costly |
| Existing meeting | 16 | 4 | 5 | Targeted audience, better attendance, more knowledgeable population; Diversity across sessions, direct feedback, improved meeting dynamics relative to open meetings | Time constraints, getting invited and on the agenda, lack of diversity for a given group. |
| Investigator-initiated meetings | 13 | 4 | 4 | Targeted audience, direct feedback | Poor attendance, communication challenges |
| Focus Groups | 10 | 5 | 5 | Substantive feedback due to interactive, small group; useful for planning other community consultation and public disclosure; using 3rd party lessens influence by investigator | Expensive, concerns about representativeness, difficult to get conversation going, challenging to schedule, challenging to report |
| Phone Survey of random sample | 2 | 5 | 5 | Representativeness, quantitative description of views, IRB satisfaction | Once deployed, difficult to change; difficult to design instrument |
| In-person survey | 3 | 5 | 5 | Large, broad sample, short period of time, cost effective | Difficulty recruiting (particularly if no history/connection to seizure), Not 2-way communication |
| In-person interview | 11 | 4 | 5 | Helps get word out, generate support, access to community; Offers direct feedback. Helps to plan future CC. | One-on-one interviews are labor and time-intensive, self-selection |
| Booth/fair | 10 | 4.5** | 4 | Large numbers. Facilitates surveys or multiple short conversations. Gives public face of the study, “gets message out.” Can target population of interest (Seizure meetings) or hard-to reach populations | Lack of substance/depth of feedback due to distractions, short conversations, and high volume; dependent on event attendance |