What is expected of people who lead meetings where the goal is to reach consensus? A scoping review with implications for improving the quality of health research grant peer review and clinical guideline development

BackgroundThe specific roles and responsibilities expected of leaders of consensus-based decision committees, such as grant peer review panels and guideline development panels, are not well-defined, which makes it difficult to train people to lead well. We aimed to explore, describe and define the roles, responsibilities, and leadership characteristics of leaders of meetings where the goal was to reach a consensus decision. MethodsWe conducted a scoping review with thematic synthesis, guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute Scoping Review Methodology, and Arksey & OMalleys framework for scoping reviews as refined by Levac et al. We searched five bibliographic databases from January 2002-2023 in English: Medline (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO) and PsycInfo (EBSCO); Proquest Digital Dissertations and ABI-Inform. We searched grey literature in the fields of health science, biomedicine, education, psychology, management, law, ethics and policy. Abstracts and full-text articles were screened in duplicate to identify eligible studies; data were extracted regarding the roles, responsibilities and characteristics of consensus decision committee leaders. Themes were constructed using reflexive thematic analysis. ResultsFrom 6732 electronic database records and 126 grey literature records, we included 24 articles and 16 websites. There were 166 unique statements extracted related to roles and responsibilities. We constructed 4 themes to describe the roles for leaders of consensus-based decision meetings: (1) organizer and/or resource manager, (2) facilitator, (3) adjudicator and, (4) administrator. ConclusionLeaders of consensus committees assumed the roles of organiser and/or resource manager, facilitator, adjudicator and administrator. Better clarification of and training for the expected roles and responsibilities of leading consensus decisions are needed. Establishing the roles and responsibilities can inform a systematic process for evaluating the performance of leaders of consensus decision committees.