This chapter provides practical advice on how to incorporate research evidence on patient or public views in all stages of the guideline process. It is not a review of the literature about how patient or public views are not widely included in guidelines, nor a summary of where further exploration of methods are needed. This chapter is meant to assist guideline developers to find, summarise and use research about patient or public views that is already available in order to develop a guideline. The term ‘patient or public views’ (from this point referred to as ‘patient views’) covers several different terms currently in use, including values, preferences, experiences, perspectives, opinions and attitudes. There are many ways to gather information about patient views to inform the guideline development process and the evidence used to make decisions, including by engagement (see the chapters on how to conduct public and targeted consultation and how to recruit and support patients and the public, and overcome barriers to their involvement in guideline development). However, this chapter focuses on evidence from research that has already been conducted or published, whether in peer-reviewed journals or as research reports and other online documents. Methods for when and how to find evidence for patient views are relatively new, and we provide guidance based on what is currently known and being done, as well as references for more detailed guidance and other chapters in the toolkit.
This chapter answers the following questions:
There are no additional resources for this chapter.