Does research through Structured Operational Research and Training (SORT IT) courses impact policy and practice?

SETTING: Structured Operational Research and Training Initiative (SORT IT) courses are well known for their output, with nearly 90% of participants completing the course and publishing in scientific journals. OBJECTIVE: We assessed the impact of research papers on policy and practice that resulted from six SORT IT courses initiated between July 2012 and March 2013. DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional study involving e-mail-based, self-administered questionnaires and telephone/skype/in-person responses from first and/or senior co-authors of course papers. A descriptive content analysis of the responses was performed and categorised into themes. RESULTS: Of 72 participants, 63 (88%) completed the course. Course output included 81 submitted papers, of which 76 (94%) were published. Of the 81 papers assessed, 45 (55%) contributed to a change in policy and/or practice: 29 contributed to government policy/practice change (20 at national, 4 at subnational and 5 at hospital level), 11 to non-government organisational policy change and 5 to reinforcing existing policy. The changes ranged from modifications of monitoring and evaluation tools, to redrafting of national guidelines, to scaling up existing policies. CONCLUSION: More than half of the SORT IT course papers contributed to a change in policy and/or practice. Future assessments should include more robust and independent verification of the reported change(s) with all stakeholders.