How to use the NPT toolkit

The interactive NPT toolkit can be used to help you think through implementation and integration problems in health care.  You can use it at any stage: from initially thinking through an idea, to understanding outcomes.

Whether you're involved in technological innovations, testing complex interventions, or implementing and evaluating any new way of thinking, working, or organising change in healthcare, the tool will prompt you to think critically about an implementation problem.

There are 3 steps to using the NPT toolkit.

Working the bars

We've simplified the constructs of Normalisation Process Theory and created sixteen items.  These represent the core variables of the theory.  You can use these items to think through your implementation problem.   Each item has three distinct features:

• A statement that defines the NPT variable.
• A sliding bar that allows you to input information about that variable.
• A explanation, that gives more detail about what the statement means.

The default poistion for each bar is at the centre. This is not neutral. With your cursor move the bar to the right, for a positive response to the Item, and to the left for a negative response. This does not give you a numerical score - instead it gives a subjective assessment.

Creating a summary

When you have reached Item 16, you will see a label telling you to 'view results'. These are presented to you as a set of  graphs. You can save them to your own computer (press the 'download pdf' button) and then print them out. The summary is a private document, only you will see it.

Interpreting the report

The graphs show the strength that you have assigned to each variable. Positive responses extend further out from the centre than negative ones. Look for areas where the responses are closer to the centre. These may tell you that participants cannot make sense, or have not signed up to the innovation. Perhaps they cannot enact it in a way that works for them, or cannot assess its effects and their value. If the responses are positive, the opposite may be true - but read our health warning below!

Each report consists of a primary graph that represents all 16 Items, and four graphs that describe your responses to statements, or items, that relate to each of the theory's four constructs. These give a clearer picture of each specific area of work that leads to the embedding of an innovation or complex intervention.

To properly interpret this information you need to read the sections of this website that tell you what NPT is and how it works - and where NPT constructs are explained, and examples are provided for each variable.

Health Warning

This is not a scientific instrument. The bars do not provide objective scores for each variable. Use them as heuristic tools to think through an implementation or integration process. Instruments to measure these variables need to be constructed using a different set of techniques - see section on Survey Research.

We do not collect the data you input to this tool. Only you have access to it.