Finding common (research) ground between general practitioners and neuroscientists: the vital role of knowledge circulation in closing the evidence-to-practice gap

It may take 15 years or longer before research evidence is integrated into clinical practice. This evidence-to-practice gap has deleterious effects on patients as well as research and clinical processes. Bringing clinical knowledge into the research process, however, has the potential to close the evidence-to-practice gap. The NEUROTRANS-Project attempts to bring research and practice together by focusing on two groups that usually operate separately in their communities: general practitioners and neuroscientists. Although both groups focus on dementia as an area of work, they do so in different contexts and without opportunities to share their expertise. Finding new treatment pathways for patients with dementia will require an equal knowledge exchange among researchers and clinicians along with the integration of that knowledge into research processes, so that both groups will benefit from the expertise of the other.

The NEUROTRANS-Project uses a qualitative, multi-stage research design to explore how neuroscientists and general practitioners (GPs) approach dementia. Using a grounded theory methodology, it analyzes semi-structured interviews, case vignettes, focus groups with GPs in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and informal conversations with, and observations of, neuroscientists from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Magdeburg.

The NEUROTRANS-Project identified a clear division of labor between two highly specialized professional groups. Neuroscientists focus abstractly on nosology whereas general practitioners tend to patient care following a hermeneutic approach integrating the patients’ perspective of illness. These different approaches to dementia create a barrier to constructive dialogue and the capacity of these groups to do research together with a common aim. Additionally, the broader system of research funding and health care within which the two groups operate reinforces their divide thereby limiting joint research capacity.

Overcoming barriers to research collaboration between general practitioners and neuroscientists requires a shift in perspective in which both groups actively engage with the other’s viewpoints to facilitate knowledge circulation (KC). Bringing ‘art into science and science into art’, i.e. amalgamating the hermeneutic approach with the perspective of nosology, is the first step in developing joint research agendas that have the potential to close the evidence-to-practice gap.