Top

Systematic Reviews

Published in:

Open Access 01-12-2021 | Protocol

Effectiveness of personal letters to healthcare professionals in changing professional behaviours: a systematic review protocol

Authors: Aikaterini Grimani, Louis Goffe, Mei Yee Tang, Fiona Beyer, Falko F. Sniehotta, Ivo Vlaev

Published in: Systematic Reviews | Issue 1/2021

Abstract

Background

Letters are regularly sent by healthcare organisations to healthcare professionals to encourage them to take action, change practice or implement guidance. However, whether letters are an effective tool in delivering a change in healthcare professional behaviour is currently uncertain. In addition, there are currently no evidence-based guidelines to support health providers and authorities with advice on how to formulate the communication, what information and behaviour change techniques to include in order to optimise the potential effect on the behaviour of the receivers. To address this research gap, we seek to inform such guidance through this systematic review, which aims to provide comprehensive evidence of the effectiveness of personal letters to healthcare professionals in changing their professional behaviours.

Methods/design

A comprehensive literature search of published and unpublished studies (the grey literature) in electronic databases will be conducted to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that meet our inclusion criteria. We will include RCTs evaluating the effectiveness of personal letters to healthcare professionals in changing professional behaviours. The primary outcome will be behavioural change. The search will be conducted in five electronic databases (from their inception onwards): MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Library and CINAHL. We will also conduct supplementary searches in Google Scholar, hand search relevant journals, and conduct backward and forward citation searching for included studies and relevant reviews. A systematic approach to searching, screening, reviewing and data extraction will be applied in accordance with the process recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration. Two researchers will examine titles, abstracts, full-texts for eligibility independently. Risk of bias will be assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 (RoB 2) tool for randomised controlled trials. Disagreements will be resolved by a consensus procedure.

Discussion

Health policy makers across government are expected to benefit from being able to increase compliance in clinical settings by applying theories of behaviour to design of policy communications. The synthesised findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication.

Systematic review registration

PROSPERO CRD42020167674

Available only for authorised users

Hallsworth M. Increasing compliance in policy settings by applying psychological theories of behaviour to message design. 2017.

Smith DH, Christensen DB, Stergachis A, Holmes G. A randomized controlled trial of a drug use review intervention for sedative hypnotic medications. Med Care. 1998;36(7):1013–21. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005650-199807000-00008.CrossRefPubMed

Azocar F, Cuffel B, Goldman W, McCarter L. The impact of evidence-based guideline dissemination for the assessment and treatment of major depression in a managed behavioral health care organization. J Behav Health Serv Res. 2003;30(1):109–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02287816.CrossRefPubMed

Stevenson A. Oxford dictionary of English. USA: Oxford University Press; 2010.

McCreary DR. Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary. Dictionaries J Dictionary Soc N Am. 2009;30(1):151–5. https://doi.org/10.1353/dic.2009.0002.CrossRef

Staff M-W. Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary: Merriam-Webster. Springfield: Massachusetts; 2004.

Michie S, Richardson M, Johnston M, Abraham C, Francis J, Hardeman W, et al. The behavior change technique taxonomy (v1) of 93 hierarchically clustered techniques: building an international consensus for the reporting of behavior change interventions. Ann Behav Med. 2013;46(1):81–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-013-9486-6.CrossRefPubMed

Cane J, Richardson M, Johnston M, Ladha R, Michie S. From lists of behaviour change techniques (BCT s) to structured hierarchies: comparison of two methods of developing a hierarchy of BCT s. Br J Health Psychol. 2015;20(1):130–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12102.CrossRefPubMed

Dolan P, Hallsworth M, Halpern D, King D, Metcalfe R, Vlaev I. Influencing behaviour: the mindspace way. J Econ Psychol. 2012;33(1):264–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2011.10.009.CrossRef

10.

Yoong SL, Hall A, Stacey F, Grady A, Sutherland R, Wyse R, et al. Nudge strategies to improve healthcare providers’ implementation of evidence-based guidelines, policies and practices: a systematic review of trials included within Cochrane systematic reviews. Implementation Sci. 2020;15(1):50. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-020-01011-0.CrossRef

11.

Grimani A, Goffe L, Tang MY, Sniehotta F, Vlaev I. The effectiveness of personal letters to healthcare professionals in changing clinical practice behaviours: a systematic review: PROSPERO 2020 CRD42020167674; [Available from: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42020167674.

12.

Moher D, Shamseer L, Clarke M, Ghersi D, Liberati A, Petticrew M, et al. Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Syst Rev. 2015;4(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-4-1.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

13.

Shamseer L, Moher D, Clarke M, Ghersi D, Liberati A, Petticrew M, et al. Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015: elaboration and explanation. Bmj. 2015;349(jan02 1). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7647.

14.

Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, Group P. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. J Clin Epidemiol. 2009;62(10):1006–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2009.06.005.CrossRefPubMed

15.

Liberati A, Altman DG, Tetzlaff J, Mulrow C, Gotzsche PC, Ioannidis JP, et al. The PRISMA statement for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses of studies that evaluate health care interventions: explanation and elaboration. J Clin Epidemiol. 2009;62(10):e1–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2009.06.006.CrossRefPubMed

16.

Huang M, Névéol A, Lu Z. Recommending MeSH terms for annotating biomedical articles. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2011;18(5):660–7. https://doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2010-000055.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

17.

Methley AM, Campbell S, Chew-Graham C, McNally R, Cheraghi-Sohi S. PICO, PICOS and SPIDER: a comparison study of specificity and sensitivity in three search tools for qualitative systematic reviews. BMC Health Serv Res. 2014;14(1):579. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-014-0579-0.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

18.

Hayes H, Buckland S, Tarpey M. Briefing notes for researchers: public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research. Eastleigh: INVOLVE; 2012.

19.

PRU Behavioural Science. Partnership working: patient and public engagement 2020 [Available from: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/behscipru/partnership%20working/.

20.

McHugh ML. Interrater reliability: the kappa statistic. Biochem Med (Zagreb). 2012;22(3):276–82.CrossRef

21.

Covidence systematic review software. Melbourne: Veritas Health Innovation; Available at www.covidence.org.

22.

Hoffmann TC, Glasziou PP, Boutron I, Milne R, Perera R, Moher D, et al. Better reporting of interventions: template for intervention description and replication (TIDieR) checklist and guide. Bmj. 2014;348(mar07 3). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g1687.

23.

Vlaev I, King D, Dolan P, Darzi A. The theory and practice of “nudging”: changing health behaviors. Public Adm Rev. 2016;76(4):550–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12564.CrossRef

24.

Michie S, Wood CE, Johnston M, Abraham C, Francis J, Hardeman W. Behaviour change techniques: the development and evaluation of a taxonomic method for reporting and describing behaviour change interventions (a suite of five studies involving consensus methods, randomised controlled trials and analysis of qualitative data). Health Technol Assess. 2015;19(99):1–188.

25.

Michie S, Van Stralen MM, West R. The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Sci. 2011;6(1):42. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42.CrossRef

26.

Schünemann HJ, Higgins JP, Vist GE, Glasziou P, Akl EA, Skoetz N, et al. Completing ‘Summary of findings’ tables and grading the certainty of the evidence. In: Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, Welch VA (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. 2nd Edition. Chichester: Wiley; 2019:375–402. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119536604.ch14.

27.

Sterne JA, Savović J, Page MJ, Elbers RG, Blencowe NS, Boutron I, et al. RoB 2: a revised tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials. BMJ. 2019;366.

28.

Higgins JP, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, et al. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. 2nd ed. Chichester (UK): John Wiley & Sons; 2019. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119536604.CrossRef

29.

Michie S, Wood CE, Johnston M, Abraham C, Francis JJ, Hardeman W. Training to code intervention descriptions using Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy version 1 (study 3). Behaviour change techniques: the development and evaluation of a taxonomic method for reporting and describing behaviour change interventions (a suite of five studies involving consensus methods, randomised controlled trials and analysis of qualitative data): NIHR Journals Library; 2015.

30.

Valentine JC, Pigott TD, Rothstein HR. How many studies do you need? A primer on statistical power for meta-analysis. J Educ Behav Stat. 2010;35(2):215–47. https://doi.org/10.3102/1076998609346961.CrossRef

Title: Effectiveness of personal letters to healthcare professionals in changing professional behaviours: a systematic review protocol
Authors: Aikaterini Grimani
Louis Goffe
Mei Yee Tang
Fiona Beyer
Falko F. Sniehotta
Ivo Vlaev
Publication date: 01-12-2021
Publisher: BioMed Central
Published in: Systematic Reviews / Issue 1/2021
Electronic ISSN: 2046-4053
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01650-4

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Effectiveness of personal letters to healthcare professionals in changing professional behaviours: a systematic review protocol

Abstract

Background

Methods/design

Discussion

Systematic review registration

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods/design

Discussion

Systematic review registration

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 1/2021

Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on the use of brain natriuretic peptide and N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide levels in the diagnosis of cardiopulmonary edema in acute respiratory failure

Appraisal of the diagnostic procedures of acute pancreatitis in the guidelines

A systematic literature review of attitudes towards secondary use and sharing of health administrative and clinical trial data: a focus on consent

Parent-directed intervention versus controls whilst their child waits for diagnostic assessment: a systematic review protocol

Aetiology and outcome of non-traumatic coma in African children: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

Meta-analysis of the association between angiotensin pathway inhibitors and COVID-19 severity and mortality