ArticleHealth policy and planning2025
Balancing realist review outputs with the needs of policymakers and practitioners.
Article in Health policy and planning, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Understanding pathways from primary health care to universal health coverage outcomes: a realist review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- How, why, for whom, and in what contexts organisational and team dynamics shape, and are shaped by, service user researchers in higher education mental health research centres: a realist review protocol.Research involvement and engagement · 2026Review
- Article
- Pharmacist prescribing in hospital inpatient settings: what works, for whom, why and in what circumstances-a realist review protocol.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Understanding integrated mental healthcare for people experiencing forced migration: a realist review protocol.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Integrated mental health for refugees: A realist theory building study.PLOS mental health · 2026Article
- Protocol: a systematic review+ (SR+) to combine associative and mechanistic evidence on the efficacy of face masks in reducing transmission of respiratory diseases.Systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Understanding global health research collaborations: an Indigenous realist evaluation of the African Research Initiative for Scientific Excellence programme.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Strengthening health research capacity for postgraduate trainees: an indigenous realist evaluation of the 'African Research Initiative for Scientific Excellence' programme.Health policy and planning · 2025Article
- Dynamics in implementing the Good Financial Grant Practice standard across three African universities: an Indigenous realist evaluation.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
- Understanding the Mechanisms that Operate within CHIME: A Realist Review Protocol.HRB open research · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
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
Abstract
A realist review is a theory-driven approach to synthesizing evidence based on the realist philosophy of science. Realist reviews are conducted to provide the policy and practice community with a rich, detailed and practical understanding of complex social interventions that will likely be of much more use to them when planning and implementing programmes. Robust realist reviews must balance philosophical engagement, methodological rigour and relevance to practice. Nevertheless, they have been criticized for being more philosophically inclined and less methodologically robust, with findings that have little implication for practice. Using the philosophy/epistemology➔ methodology➔ theory➔ practice concept flow, we report how we balanced philosophical principles and practical insights in a recently conducted realist review on participatory practices that impact the benefits of non-communicable disease research and interventions in low- and middle-income countries. If realist reviews are not comprehensible enough for these practitioners, their utility and relevance may suffer from being limited to a specialist cohort of academics. We propose that realist review findings and outputs must be framed and communicated to meaningfully engage practitioners without undertaking translational efforts.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
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 Socratic graph.