Getting the most out of knowledge and innovation transfer agents in health care: a qualitative study

The impact of knowledge brokering in health sector and the challenges: A review of literature

Knowledge brokering is a type of knowledge translation that bridge the researchers and end users. Knowledge brokering assist the interactions between all agents to understand each other's perspectives and goals to improve health system performance. The failure to deliver how important the research implementation in society may cause significant outcome. A person or organization who perform knowledge brokering is called knowledge broker (KB). Literature review is conducted for the clinical question of how knowledge brokering impact the health sector and the visible challenges. A literature search is performed by systematic search using three major online databases; Cochrane, PubMed, and EBSCO. Hand-searching also yielded one result that fit the objective of this study. The database result search was being screened from the title and abstract which resulted in 14 relevant articles. After reading the full-text articles, four literatures were ruled-in. The study assessed knowledge brokering process using various methods like single framework or model as well as the combination. The challenges include the lack of communication between internal team and end users, leadership skill, engaging end users, knowledge transfer activity, different timeline, and diverse vision. Evaluating and applying knowledge brokering strategies were needed as the practice itself bringing positive outcomes. Knowledge brokering approaches consist of many methods which tailored to the study objective. Challenges that stand out were communication and personal skill, engaging end users, and perspectives difference. The impact of knowledge brokering is challenging to assess. Further studies that evaluate the impacts of knowledge brokering are still needed.

Psychometric Properties of the Chinese Revision of the Pitt Wellness Scale for People in the University Environment

Background

The number of students enrolled in higher education in China accounts for more than one-fifth of the world, and universities, as a community of faculty, staff and scholars, currently do not have a scale that specifically assesses the well-being of the population in the environment of Chinese universities. However, the University of Pittsburgh has developed a comprehensive well-being scale, referred to as the Pitt Wellness Scale, specifically to measure people's well-being in a university environment.

Aims

Investigate the psychometric properties of the Pitt Wellness Scale in Chinese university environmental samples.

Methods

The original scale was culturally adapted and modified through expert consultation, a random sample of 1870 current faculty, staff, and students were selected for the questionnaire survey. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to investigate the potential factor structure of the Chinese Revision of the Pitt Wellness Scale and to measure its reliability and validity. Finally, the factors that affect people's well-being in the Chinese university environment were explored.

Results

The Chinese Revision of the Pitt Wellness Scale retained 30 items, and the EFA supports a five-factor structure, which differed from the results of the original scale, and the CFA results showed that the model fitted well. The discriminant validity of the modified Chinese scale was excellent. The overall Omega coefficient of the scale was 0.958, and the reliability of the retest after 4 weeks was 0.821.

Conclusion

The Chinese Revision of the Pitt Wellness Scale possesses satisfactory psychometric properties, and it can be considered an instrument for assessing personal well-being in Chinese university environment.