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Table 4 Feasibility Themes

From: Priorities for research in child maltreatment, intimate partner violence and resilience to violence exposures: results of an international Delphi consensus development process

Feasibility theme

Exemplar Comments

Feasibility re: Conduct of Research

Defining and operationalizing concepts, methods and measures

ā€œI'm not sure we'll ever reach consensus on definitions but measurement is a very important issue that requires quite a bit of additional work. Perhaps we would have better success developing common measures that would lead us to widely accepted indicators rather than definitions.ā€ ā€œFew of these services have been formally evaluated. This would provide information useful in developing and testing new interventions.ā€ ā€œThese kinds of methods have been developed in other contexts ā€¦ and those methods could be reviewed for applicability to [violence, gender and mental health] studies.ā€ ā€œData-driven definition is important, what is goal about definition, if definition is not accompanied by operationalization it wonā€™t move the field forward.ā€ ā€œI think spending a lot of time on definitions and measures would be redundant with other work that has already been done.ā€

Conducting research (including costs)

ā€œMore attention should be paid to observational and qualitative studies - and to small-scale or local interventions which might deserve a high rating for quality. Also, these studies could provide insights into cultural appropriateness, and variations in culture-specific approaches.ā€ ā€œData linkage is relatively inexpensive, fosters collaboration, and can address policy questions.ā€ ā€œTo conduct interaction studies a very large N size is needed and no one study will be able to handle all levels of contexts ā€¦ Prudent designs that consider one population vs. another population (e.g. communities with high maltreatment vs. low maltreatment) can assist in capturing these complex models to test.ā€

Building the evidence base, not re-creating the wheel

ā€œCDC has used a consensus building process to develop uniform definitions and data elements for child maltreatment, intimate partner violence and sexual violence. So, it seems like re-creating the wheel to start from scratch on definitions.ā€ ā€œI know that other groups are working on thisā€¦we should use their work and adapt it to our fields, rather than working on this from the ground upā€ ā€œI think there is already some evidence and more is always useful but perhaps this is not so vital as other priorities.ā€ ā€œChild maltreatment in First Nations communities is definitely a priority ā€“ however the work in this area has to support and build on the work that First Nations communities are already doing.ā€ ā€œGiven how few tested interventions exist, there may be something to learn from a review of ā€˜best practicesā€™ in community programs, including any evaluative studies which have been doneā€

Feasibility re: Implementation of Research

Implementing interventions (including costs)

ā€œMany of the effective and promising programmes developed in high-income countries are prohibitively expensive for low- and middle-income countries, which make up the vast majority of the world's population.ā€ ā€œDeveloping effective interventions is only half the battle, they then have to be successfully and sustainably implemented on a large enough scale and this too is an important area of research.ā€ ā€œTailor programs to fit culturally diverse communities.ā€

Partnering and advocacy

ā€œChanges such as these are hard to achieve unless there is a will to do so at the senior levels of government. We should begin lobbying for this now, understanding that taking on this agenda may be a long-term project.ā€ ā€œI know that WHO is very interested in this and we should try to help.ā€ ā€œI do think that a coordinated effort with child welfare agencies to prevent recurrence and improve parenting should be undertaken.ā€ ā€œThis is an important global priority that could be encouraged by PreVAiL, esp. partners, but since itā€™s not primary research, may be slightly outside the scope of PreVAiLā€™s main mandateā€

Other Feasibility Considerations

Being realistic (re: timeframes, expertise and the broader research context)

ā€œExtremely interesting but feasibility with our current investigators is very limited.ā€ ā€œAny information on promising prevention programs would be most welcomed but I donā€™t see this necessarily as PreVAiLā€™s strengthā€¦more like UNIFEM or other [international] NGOs.ā€ ā€œMight be possible to do research and evaluation within the time frame, in very specific settings.ā€ ā€œGiven the long-range time span for this item, it might be difficult to do appropriate research in 3 ā€“ 5ā€‰years.ā€ ā€œSeems like we have methods to do this already, but we lack the commitment of funders for the long haul ā€“ funding longitudinal follow-up.ā€