The Forward with Dementia (FWD) project is a dementia awareness campaign that was implemented across five countries. The campaign included components such as websites (in four languages – www.forwardwithdementia.org), webinars, newsletters, and social media posts. This campaign is the fourth phase of a three-year longitudinal mixed methods study with five phases in five countries: Canada (New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec), Australia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Poland. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation and perceived impact of the FWD websites and campaign in the five participating countries.

The RE-AIM framework (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) was used to guide the campaign evaluation. The evaluation was drawn from Google Analytics, surveys, individual interviews, and report cards. Data collection occurred between September 2021 and May 2022.

There were approximately 124,945 page views across all FWD websites during the campaign. Participants of the surveys and interviews reported engaging in a range of campaign activities. They read information about receiving a diagnosis, stories from persons with lived experience in dementia, news, and attended webinars (or watched recording). Most participants rated the information that they read on the website moderately, very, or extremely helpful. In addition, the majority of respondents said that they plan to visit the website again. During the interviews, participants shared that the website was easy to navigate, practical, and that it maintains a positive tone related to dementia. The co-design aspect of the campaign was considered a strength.

The findings indicate that the FWD campaign can provide support for people who have recently received a dementia diagnosis and their family or friends. In addition, the campaign may provide health and social care providers with a new source of information and tools to use and share with their clients. These results informed the development of a playbook to guide regions and countries beyond those involved in this project to implement similar initiatives.

Systematic mixed studies reviews are a type of systematic review that combine qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies. They are gaining in popularity due to their potential for providing in-depth answers to complex clinical problems and practical concerns. However, several challenges are encountered in systematic mixed studies reviews because of the heterogeneity of included study designs. One of these challenges is related to the quality appraisal of included studies. To address this challenge, a critical appraisal tool for assessing the quality of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies was developed in 2007: the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). The aim of this project was to strengthen the content validity of the MMAT.

A new version of the MMAT was developed using the results from a literature review on critical appraisal tools and a modified e-Delphi study with methodological experts (n = 73) to identify the core relevant criteria to include in the MMAT.

The results of this project and the new version of the MMAT will be presented. The MMAT has three main characteristics. First, it can be used for different study designs since it includes criteria for qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies. Second, the MMAT focuses on the core relevant methodological criteria and has five criteria per category of study. Third, it includes specific criteria for assessing mixed methods studies.

Currently, there exists over 500 critical appraisal tools, making the task of selecting the proper tools for use in systematic mixed studies reviews more difficult. The MMAT offers an alternative solution by proposing a unique tool that can appraise the quality of different study designs. Also, by limiting to core criteria, the MMAT can provide a more time efficient assessment.