Tips for Assessing and Reporting Contextual Factors
| Engage diverse perspectives |
| Research participants (organizations, patients and clinicians, investigative team) |
| Relevant theoretical models |
| Prior research |
| Potential end users of study findings |
| Consider multiple levels |
| From the macro to the micro |
| Interactions between levels |
| Evaluate the evolution of contextual factors over time |
| Initial conditions and history |
| Changes over the course of the study |
| Look at both formal and informal systems and culture |
| Peer across the boundaries |
| Look for (mis)alignments |
| Be sensitive to the locus of power |
| Appraise internal and external motivations |
| Evaluate resources, support, and financial and other incentives |
| Assess (often nonlinear) interactions between contextual factors and both the process and outcome of studies |
| Report within the body of scientific articles key contextual factors that others would need to know (1) to understand what happened in the study and why, and (2) to be able to transport and knowledgeably reinvent the project in another situation |