Developing Communication Plans

Effective communication is essential in research, and the Beyond the Form toolkit offers strategies for developing a comprehensive communication plan that addresses the needs of diverse participant populations, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Key recommendations include engaging consumers in project planning to ensure relevance, piloting communication approaches with target populations, and collaborating with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers to foster culturally respectful practices.

The toolkit highlights the importance of consulting with ethics review bodies and research governance officers to clarify communication responsibilities, particularly for sharing the outcomes of the research project. Using existing templates and embedding evaluation strategies can support a structured, responsive approach to participant engagement, and help research teams build transparent, ethical, and participant-centered communication practices.

Your communication plan is likely to include some of the specific strategies that we have on the Elements of a Communication Plan page. These strategies were discussed in many of the research staff interviews and in detail with workshop participants. We have included quotes from these participants and links to resources and case studies.

Comic strip illustrating steps to developing a communication plan. Frame 1 Image: Five buckets of beads. Text: There are lots of different approaches to communication. Frame 2 Image: Two people sitting at a table reaching into a bowl of mixed coloured beads. Text: Talk to potential participants and site staff about what would be best for your project. Frame 3 Image: Two hands threading beads onto a piece of string. Text: Build your communication plan. Frame 4 Image: one hand, wearing a bracelet laced with beads from the previous frames. Text: Deliver the plan and close the loop by telling participants about the outcome of the study. Frame 5 Image: 4 hands, all wearing beaded bracelets that all look slightly different. Text: Having flexibility built into the plan means it can be adjusted to suite the participant or site

Consumers in health care are patients, potential patients, carers and people who use health care services. Consumers can also be research participants or potential participants. We recommend that you include consumer representatives in your project planning group, and test communication strategies with people from the target populations that you wish to recruit. These groups are best placed to advise how relevant these issues are in the context of your research project and your population.

You can find some information about engaging consumers in the design here:

There are additional considerations with research involving Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander participants, including their more holistic conception of health and awareness of historical health injustices. Because of this, there is an ethical imperative that research projects include genuine engagement with local Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander representatives if:

  • the experience of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples is an explicit focus of all or part of the research
  • data collection is explicitly directed at Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples
  • Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples, as a group, are to be examined in the results/publications
  • information has an impact on one or more Aboriginal communities
  • Aboriginal health funds are a source of fundings
  • the research will benefit Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander health
  • These projects should also comply with:
  • The AIATSIS code of ethics, which outlines key principles for conducting ethical research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
  • Relevant advice from Aboriginal ethics bodies per jurisdiction, recognising that not all states and territories have a dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ethics committee
  • NHMRC guidelines for ethical conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

When reporting on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples it is important to be guided by relevant guidelines for appropriate research reporting such as:

  • The CONSIDER statement, which includes the requirement that publications demonstrate how the research findings will be disseminated to the relevant indigenous governing bodies and peoples.
  • The CREATE Tool which is a quality appraisal tool to assess the quality of health research from an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspective and aligns with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander values and Indigenous methodologies.

Some of the groups working in this space include:

Resources

Relevant papers

We recommend developing a communication plan to guide discussions with ethics review bodies, research governance officers, and with site staff during feasibility assessments. This communication plan should include the responsibilities that each party will have in ensuring that the communication will take place. For instance, who will have responsibility to ensure that participants will receive the lay summary of the project outcomes, especially if the site will be closed before then? This may include seeking approval of the document from the ethics review body and sending the document to the participants.

There are existing templates for how you might approach developing a communication plan (e.g. this one developed by Shelly et.al.). Your plan should include the triggers for when communication will be sent out, how feedback about your communication will be collected and addressed, and what your plan for seeking ethics approval will be.

Your communication plan should also include evaluation strategies. As identified in the White Paper there is a relative lack of reporting on the effectiveness of communication with research participants, and we encourage you to contribute to our knowledge by evaluating and publishing on your communication. For instance, you should consider how feedback from participants and site staff will be sought or received, and how such feedback will be responded to either in the current project or in future projects.

We have developed this guidance document, which aims to help ethics review bodies set proportional review processes for ongoing communications with researchers:

Ethics Review of Clinical Research Communications

Depending on your research project, it may be appropriate to submit a master communication plan for central review, which is then adjusted by sites to suit their staffing, technical capacity, and likely participant preferences. This is similar to how Master PICFs can be adapted to suit site needs.

Resources:

Elements of Communications Plans

We have also developed detailed information about these common elements of communications plans:

  • Primary point of contact
  • Support person
  • Opportunities for health education
  • Expressions of gratitude
  • Individual results
  • Research progress updates
  • Research outcomes