Summary:
Cognitive rehabilitation is a high priority area to address in acquired brain injury (ABI) care. A greater understanding of the criteria used by rehabilitation teams when prioritizing specific cognitive interventions for implementation could inform the development of effective strategies to move evidence into practice. Therefore, the objective of this qualitative study was to describe the criteria for prioritizing best practices to implement in cognitive rehabilitation post-ABI using a comprehensive implementation framework. As the first step in a multi-site integrated knowledge translation initiative, a consensus-building methodology, i.e., the Technique for Research of Information by Animation of a Group of Experts (TRIAGE), was used to prioritize practices to implement by three separate ABI rehabilitation teams (n = 8, 12 and 15 members). Transcripts of the teams’ TRIAGE consensual group discussions were analyzed using the Framework Method and mapped across the domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. The most important criteria guiding priority setting in all the teams were the characteristics of the inner setting, the interventions, the individuals involved, and patients’ and families’ needs and resources. Particularly critical in prioritizing best practices to implement in the view of all the teams appeared to be the characteristics of the inner setting (e.g., implementation climate, readiness for implementation). Overall, the teams tended to prioritize practices that were partially known and used by a few clinicians but needed more systematic implementation through inter-professional collaboration. Rehabilitation teams should monitor these factors throughout the process from prioritization to implementation of the selected best practices in order to guide the tailoring of implementation strategies.