Question(s) How do individuals living with musculoskeletal disorders perceive the concept of prognosis? Design Exploratory phenomenological study. Participants Individuals aged 18 years or older currently experiencing a musculoskeletal disorder. Data analysis Single semi‐structured one‐on‐one interviews were conducted. Data was analysed using inductive coding and thematic analysis. Results Five themes were identified. First, participants defined prognosis as the likely outcome associated with their diagnosis. Their prognosis was often associated with outcomes related to pain, tissue health, and function. Second, participants perceived pain as having a negative impact on their prognosis by limiting their function and having a psychological impact. Third, participants held biomedical views in that tissue health was perceived as a cause for their pain and that tissue healing was essential for pain cessation. It was also difficult for participants to distinguish between pain related to tissue damage, and pain that was not. Fourth, participants use their ability to complete leisure and functional activities to determine the success of their recovery. Finally, participants perceived receiving individual prognoses for pain, tissue health, and function that may be simultaneously occurring as both important and beneficial. Conclusion Overall, participants viewed receiving prognostic information as important and beneficial. When constructing their views on prognosis participants perceived that pain, tissue health, and functional ability could all impact upon prognosis, whilst having a prognosis of their own. Physiotherapists should consider conceptualising and discussing prognosis in terms of pain, tissue health, and function when managing musculoskeletal disorders.

Question(s)What are the experiences and preferences of individuals living with a musculoskeletal disorder regarding prognosis?DesignExploratory phenomenological study.ParticipantsIndividuals aged 18‐year or older currently experiencing a musculoskeletal disorder and receiving treatment from a physiotherapist.Data AnalysisData were collected through semi‐structured interviews and analysed using inductive coding and thematic analysis.ResultsFive themes were identified. First, participants described seeking a cause for their pain. This influenced their experience of prognosis as they perceived a diagnosis was required to inform their prognosis. Second, whilst participants wished to receive a prognosis from their physiotherapist, this was often not their experience. Third, participants perceived that physiotherapists have the potential to impact prognosis through exercise prescription, management of conditions, and improving function. Fourth, receiving a prognosis can have both a positive and negative impact on the individual. Positive impacts include planning for the future, motivation, knowledge acquisition, and instilling hope. However, receiving a prognosis can be disheartening if a patient's expectations are unmet. Finally, participants have several preferences regarding receiving a prognosis including when and how often the prognosis is discussed, what prognostic information is provided, how the prognosis is presented, and what prognosis based on.ConclusionIndividuals wish to receive a prognosis, although this is not always their experience. Individuals perceive that physiotherapists have the ability to provide a prognosis and impact their prognosis. Furthermore, receiving a prognosis has an impact on itself. To ensure patient‐centred care, physiotherapists should explicitly discuss the prognosis with patients and consider their preferences when providing a prognosis.

Background: The disconnect between research and clinical practice leads to research evidence that is often not useful for clinical practice. Practice-based research networks are collaborations between researchers and clinicians aimed at co-producing more useful research. Such networks are rare in the physiotherapy field. We aimed to describe i) clinician’s motivations behind, and enablers to, participating in a network; ii) the process of network establishment; and iii) research priorities for a practice-based network of physiotherapists in the Hunter Region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia that supports research co-production. MethodsWe describe the methods and outcomes of three steps we used to establish the network. Step one involved consultation with local opinion leaders and a formative evaluation to understand clinician’s motivations behind, and enablers to, participating in a network. Step two involved establishment activities to generate a founding membership group and co-design a governance model. Step three involved mapping clinical problems through a workshop guided by systems thinking theory with local stakeholders and prioritising research areas.ResultsThrough formative evaluation focus groups, we generated five key motivating themes and three key enablers for physiotherapists’ involvement in the network. Establishment activities led to a founding membership group (n=29, 67% from private practice clinics), a network vision and mission statement, and a joint governance group (9/13 (70%) are private practice clinicians). Our problem mapping and prioritisation process led to three clinically relevant priority research areas with the potential for significant change in practice and patient outcomes. ConclusionsClinicians are motivated to collaborate with researchers to not only improve research relevance, but to solve a wide array of issues with the delivery of care. Research that follows from this collaboration should, therefore, be maximally useful to clinical practice by addressing issues that may not be possible to address when working in silos. More work is needed to explore the proposed benefits of practice-based research networks.

Background The disconnect between research and clinical practice leads to research evidence that is often not useful for clinical practice. Practice-based research networks are collaborations between researchers and clinicians aimed at coproducing more useful research. Such networks are rare in the physiotherapy field. We aimed to describe (i) clinicians’ motivations behind, and enablers to, participating in a network, (ii) the process of network establishment and (iii) research priorities for a practice-based network of physiotherapists in the Hunter Region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia that supports research coproduction. Methods We describe the methods and outcomes of the three steps we used to establish the network. Step 1 involved consultation with local opinion leaders and a formative evaluation to understand clinicians’ motivations behind, and enablers to, participating in a network. Step 2 involved establishment activities to generate a founding membership group and codesign a governance model. Step 3 involved mapping clinical problems through a workshop guided by systems thinking theory with local stakeholders and prioritizing research areas. Results Through formative evaluation focus groups, we generated five key motivating themes and three key enablers for physiotherapists’ involvement in the network. Establishment activities led to a founding membership group (n = 29, 67% from private practice clinics), a network vision and mission statement, and a joint governance group (9/13 [70%] are private practice clinicians). Our problem-mapping and prioritization process led to three clinically relevant priority research areas with the potential for significant change in practice and patient outcomes. Conclusions Clinicians are motivated to break down traditional siloed research generation and collaborate with researchers to solve a wide array of issues with the delivery of care. Practice-based research networks have promise for both researchers and clinicians in the common goal of improving patient outcomes.