ArticleBMC medical ethics2015
Co-design and implementation research: challenges and solutions for ethics committees.
Article in BMC medical ethics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 118 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
118 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Co-creation of healthier food retail environments: A systematic review to explore the type of stakeholders and their motivations and stage of engagement.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2022Pooled it
- Meaningful patient and public involvement in digital health innovation, implementation and evaluation: A systematic review.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2022Pooled it
- Agile Co-design in Public Mental Health: An Integrated Model for Continuous Service Improvement.Community mental health journal · 2026Article
- A call for supplemental implementation strategy reporting guidelines to advance minority health: applying expanded specification and reporting recommendations to the Literacy Promotion for Latinos study.Implementation science communications · 2026Article
- Young Adults' Views on Priority Health Issues and Their Involvement in Shaping Responses: A Qualitative Exploration in South Australia.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2026Article
- Essential Factors That Support National Implementation of Designated Registered Nurse Prescribing: A Systems-Thinking Approach.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Article
- Facilitators' experiences of co-designing an intrapartum care intervention in four sub-Saharan African countries: a qualitative study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Infusing co-design with ADAPT-ITT: adapting interventions with populations experiencing health disparities.Research involvement and engagement · 2026Article
- Integrating paediatric subspecialists into the delivery of genomic medicine: A qualitative study.Paediatrics & child health · 2026Article
- Three days inside: exploring reciprocity and trust in a participatory action research community case study in the Netherlands.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Designing context-specific implementation strategies to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene in urban low-income settlements in Nigeria: outcome of stakeholders' collaborative approach.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Integrating screening and management of mental disorders, including substance use disorders into other non-communicable disease care: insights from theory-informed implementation strategies creation for implementation model M0 in Faridabad, India as part of ICMR-MINDS project.Frontiers in health services · 2026Article
- Article
- Ethical considerations in implementation research: a scoping review of key principles, unintended consequences, and emerging ethical guidance.Implementation science communications · 2025Review
- Developing and applying the 'Participatory Research to Action Framework' for meaningful engagement of experts-by-experience in applied health services research: a case study approach.Research involvement and engagement · 2025Article
- Supporting parent treatment decision-making in relapsed and refractory neuroblastoma: co-design of a web-based intervention.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Article
- Ethical challenges, responses and reasoning in co-creation for health promotion: a scoping review.BMC medical ethics · 2025Article
- Community co-design of research intervention materials to reduce cervical cancer disparities in Appalachia.PEC innovation · 2025Article
- Decolonizing the exploration of perinatal mental health screening with Indigenous Australian parents in primary care.Primary health care research & development · 2025Article
- The implementation and evaluation of a family-led novel intervention for delirium prevention and management in adult critically ill patients: A mixed-methods pilot study.Nursing in critical care · 2025Article
58 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundImplementation science research, especially when using participatory and co-design approaches, raises unique challenges for research ethics committees. Such challenges may be poorly addressed by approval and governance mechanisms that were developed for more traditional research approaches such as randomised controlled trials. DISCUSSION: Implementation science commonly involves the partnership of researchers and stakeholders, attempting to understand and encourage uptake of completed or piloted research. A co-creation approach involves collaboration between researchers and end users from the onset, in question framing, research design and delivery, and influencing strategy, with implementation and broader dissemination strategies part of its design from gestation. A defining feature of co-creation is its emergent and adaptive nature, making detailed pre-specification of interventions and outcome measures impossible. This methodology sits oddly with ethics committee protocols that require precise pre-definition of interventions, mode of delivery, outcome measurements, and the role of study participants. But the strict (and, some would say, inflexible) requirements of ethics committees were developed for a purpose - to protect participants from harm and help ensure the rigour and transparency of studies. We propose some guiding principles to help square this circle. First, ethics committees should acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of research approaches, both formally (through training) and informally (by promoting debate and discussion); without active support, their members may not understand or value participatory designs. Second, ground rules should be established for co-design applications (e.g. how to judge when 'consultation' or 'engagement' becomes research) and communicated to committee members and stakeholders. Third, the benefits of power-sharing should be recognised and credit given to measures likely to support this important goal, especially in research with vulnerable communities. Co-design is considered best practice, for example, in research involving indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.