group, a lay member of the team has commented on all research plans, patient materials and final documents. We have fed back to service user groups from the study clinics when appropriate and a service user representative has been present at all presentations to the clinical teams involved in the research so that our work can be fed back to the wider service user communities. We will continue with this dissemination activity through University College London’s website (www.ucl.ac.uk/iph), on which will be placed links to all publications and this final report in due course.
Public involvement was particularly important in workstream 3. We have summarised below key areas in which we have worked together for the whole duration of the research.
To aid in the design and implementation plan of the SPORTSMART interventions for the pilot RCT, preclinical patient and public involvement (PPI) work was conducted in London. This work included qualitative research and potential participant and stakeholder consultation:
1. Initial stakeholder consultation with members of various community groups within sport, antiracial discrimination and men’s health: Sporting Equals, Premier League Health, Men’s Health Forum and the Football Foundation. This consultation provided useful information on lessons learned (by some of the community groups) from previous sporting-based health promotion campaigns.
2. Qualitative research conducted with potential participants in the London area–men who played football and who came from groups that we would wish to target in the forthcoming research. This allowed us to assess the potential acceptability of offering STI test kits at amateur football clubs in London. The data from these interviews provided detailed information on the way in which these STI test kits should be offered to players in this setting, specifically:
l Following preliminary market research conducted outside London (conducted in advance of application for funding for the Ballseye study) we anticipated that club members would value in-depth informational sessions on STI prevention as part of the coach-led and sexual HCP-led interventions. However, when this was presented to club members in London during qualitative interviews, participants strongly suggested a brief (<5-minute) informal chat on the need for STI testing (i.e. many men infected with chlamydia do not have any symptoms; national recommendations for men aged<25 years to be screened for STIs every year and after partner change).186
l Interview participants suggested that discreet branding and packaging for the STI testing kits would encourage players to take part in screening and, if so desired, take home the test kits for return to the clinic by post.
l Informal interviews with football club managers, captains, coaches and (in some cases) players who agreed to participate in the intervention prior to intervention implementation meant that we were able to incorporate suggestions given by gatekeepers in the clubs where we would be implementing the interventions. This allowed us to have a better understanding of the factors that might affect acceptability, specifically:
¢ the time and place of screening promotion (e.g. promoting screening in changing rooms before or after the match)
¢ identification of football coaches to lead the coach-led intervention.
l Club manager and coach explanations of fixture schedules and match timings given to the trial co-ordinator. This allowed for a greater understanding of how much time we would have to run the pilot trial and what factors would affect this (e.g. weather).
l Brief interviews with the HCP and captains promoting STI test kits in the football clubs. These post-implementation enquiries allowed us to investigate factors affecting acceptability of the intervention, specifically:
¢ health-care professionals’and coaches’comfort with delivery of the intervention
¢ perception of club members’comfort with the intervention
¢ account of the questions that club members raised with health-care professionals and coaches
¢ length of intervention delivery.
3. Presentation of study findings. All participating clubs and stakeholders were presented with a report of the preliminary findings from the SPORTSMART study. Those involved in club liaison (including team captains, club managers and secretaries) and stakeholders were e-mailed a report to pass on to the club members either through the club e-mail or using printouts within 3 months of the completion of data collection. Each report also included an offer to present the study findings at their location by a SPORTSMART researcher.
As a result of these initiatives, we have generated sufficient interest from the public and community groups to establish a sustainable PPI programme for our research: the Barts Sexual Health Public Voice Research Group. This group of around 20 people forms our lay research panel, facilitating lay people to join the research team, comment on proposals, generate ideas for future research and help with dissemination of findings to the wider community.
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This report presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health