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Background: This report is an introduction to a series of three research papers that describe the evolution of the approaches taken by the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) research team during its first four years to feed back the research findings to study participants. TREC is an observational multi-method health services research project underway in 36 nursing homes in the prairie provinces of Canada. TREC has actively involved decision makers from the sector in all stages from initial planning, through data collection to dissemination activities. However, it was not planned as a fully integrated knowledge translation project. These three papers describe our progress towards fully integrated knowledge translation-with respect to timely and requested feedback processes. The first paper reports on the process and outcomes of creating and evaluating the feedback of research findings to healthcare aides (unregulated health professionals). These aides provide over 80% of the direct care in our sample and actively requested the feedback as a condition of their continued cooperation in the data acquisition process. The second paper describes feedback from nursing home administrators on preliminary research findings (a facility annual report) and evaluation of the reports' utility. The third paper discusses an approach to providing a more in-depth form of feedback (expanded feedback report) at one of the TREC nursing homes. Findings: Survey and interview feedback from healthcare aides is presented in the first paper. Overall, healthcare aides' opinions about presentation of the feedback report and the understand ability, usability, and usefulness of the content were positive. The second paper describes the use of telephone interviews with facility administrators and indicates that the majority of contextual areas (e.g., staff job satisfaction) addressed in facility annual report to be useful, meaningful, and understandable. More than one-half of the administrators would have liked to have received information on additional areas. The third paper explores how a case study that examined how involvement with the TREC study influenced management and staff at one of the TREC nursing homes. The importance of understanding organizational routines and the impact of corporate restructuring were key themes emerging from the case study. In addition, the Director of Care suggested changes to the structure and format of the feedback report that would have improved its usefulness. Conclusions: We believe that these findings will inform others undertaking integrated knowledge translation activities and will encourage others to become more engaged in feedback processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This project is part of the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research, a multi-level and longitudinal research program being conducted in 36 nursing homes in three Canadian Prairie Provinces. The overall goal of TREC is to improve the quality of care for older persons living in nursing homes and the quality of work life for care providers. The purpose of this paper is to report on development and evaluation of facility annual reports (FARs) from facility administrators' perspectives on the usefulness, meaningfulness, and understandability of selected data from the TREC survey. Methods: A cross sectional survey design was used in this study. The feedback reports were developed in collaboration with participating facility administrators. FARs presented results in four contextual areas: workplace culture, feedback processes, job satisfaction, and staff burnout. Six weeks after FARs were mailed to each administrator, we conducted structured telephone interviews with administrators to elicit their evaluation of the FARs. Administrators were also asked if they had taken any actions as a result of the FAR. Descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as content analysis for open-ended questions, were used to summarize findings. Results: Thirty-one facility administrators (representing thirty-two facilities) participated in the interviews. Six administrators had taken action and 18 were planning on taking action as a result of FARs. The majority found the four contextual areas addressed in FAR to be useful, meaningful, and understandable. They liked the comparisons made between data from years one and two and between their facility and other TREC study sites in their province. Twenty-two indicated that they would like to receive information on additional areas such as aggressive behaviours of residents and information sharing. Twenty-four administrators indicated that FARs contained enough information, while eight found FARs 'too short'. Administrators who reported that the FAR contained enough information were more likely to take action within their facilities than administrators who reported that they needed more information. Conclusions: Although the FAR was brief, the presentation of the four contextual areas was relevant to the majority of administrators and prompted them to plan or to take action within their facility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]