Research priorities for venous conditions: results of the UK Vascular James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Process

Introduction: Venous disease comprises a range of conditions of varying severity, which can result in pain and discomfort and a reduced quality of life. The annual costs for the treatment and management of venous disease in the UK is in the order of billions of pounds. It is vitally important to direct finite National Health Service (NHS) funding into areas that will maximise health outcomes and reduce the burden on the NHS. To address the issue of where best to target resources and research, the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland (VSGBI) in association with the James Lind Alliance (JLA) undertook a national Priority Setting Process (PSP) for vascular conditions. This paper presents the results of this process, with a focus on the topic of ‘venous conditions’. Methods: A modified JLA Priority Setting Partnership was developed to gather clinician, patient and carer research priorities for vascular conditions. Consensus workshops were held to discuss clinician and patient priorities and agree a list of joint research priorities. Consensus was achieved using the nominal group technique and a ranked ‘top 10’ list of research priorities for venous conditions was established. Results: In the first phase (clinician-led survey), 481 clinicians submitted 1,231 research questions related to vascular conditions in general. Of these, 130 venous-specific research priorities were reduced to 13 overarching summary priorities recirculated for interim scoring. In the second phase (patient and carer-led survey), 373 patients and carers submitted 582 research priorities. Of these, 101 venous-specific priorities were reduced to 22 overarching summary priorities and recirculated for interim scoring. In the third phase (consensus workshop), clinician and patient priorities were amalgamated into 14 priorities for discussion. The final ‘top 10’ list of venous condition research priorities relate to: access to specialist venous services, prevention, wound healing, pain management, education and compliance. Conclusions: The ‘top 10’ venous-related priorities demonstrate the research areas considered to be most important from the perspective of patients, carers and healthcare professionals. Researchers can now focus their efforts on developing research questions and studies to address these priorities and funders should increase their investment to support new studies in these areas of greatest importance.