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. 2022 May;12(4):732-741.
doi: 10.1177/21925682211005406. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

How Can Policymakers be Encouraged to Support People With Spinal Cord Injury-Scoping Review

Roya Habibi Arejan  1   2 , Zahra Azadmanjir  1   3 , Zahra Ghodsi  1 , Hamid Reza Dehghan  4 , Mahdi Sharif-Alhoseini  1 , Mohammadreza Tabary  5 , Melika Khaleghi-Nekou  1 , Khatereh Naghdi  1 , Alexander R Vaccaro  6 , Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi  1 , Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar  1   7   8   9   10   11
Affiliations

How Can Policymakers be Encouraged to Support People With Spinal Cord Injury-Scoping Review

Roya Habibi Arejan et al. Global Spine J. 2022 May.

Abstract

Study design: Scoping review.

Objective: Regarding that inappropriate medical care approaches, absence of rehabilitation services, and existing barriers in physical, social, and policy environments lead to poor outcomes in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) and provision for appropriate interventions and care must be created by health policymakers, we conducted this scoping review to investigate how policymakers can be persuaded to set new plans for individuals with SCI.

Methods: This review was performed according to Arksey and O'Malley's framework. PubMed was searched in February2019 without language limitation. We looked for other potential gray literature sources and some professional websites. References sections of selected articles were also scanned for other relevant literature.

Results: We included literature that met inclusion criteria to answer our research question. The literature was divided into 3 categories. The first category included economic impact of SCI. The second category included the role of research and developing research strategy. The third category included effective interaction and communication with policymakers.

Conclusion: It is essential to consider multiple factors for influencing policymakers' decisions. These factors include knowing how to communicate with policymakers and presenting constructive ideas, providing a source of valid, reliable, and consistent data, considering the role of patients' advocacy groups and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and presentation of the importance of early intervention in reducing healthcare system costs. Ultimately, the goal is to have a comprehensive and flexible plan for influencing policymakers.

Keywords: health care system; legislation; policy makers; spinal cord injury; support.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: There is no conflict of interest regarding our paper except Alexander R. Vaccaro who has the following conflicts of interest:

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flowchart of search process.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The ways to encourage policymakers to support individuals with spinal cord injury.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Tips for influencing policy makers. (Modified based on Tilley et al & Oliver et al).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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