Navigating tensions between community needs and research protocols: Lessons from a disrupted hybrid...

Effective implementation of evidence-based practices in community settings requires balancing scientific rigor with community partnership principles. While frameworks exist for documenting modifications to intervention delivery, no comparable approach addresses adaptations to research protocols themselves, particularly when community-based participatory research values are in tension with methodological ideals. We conducted a retrospective analysis of a disrupted hybrid effectiveness-implementation study of Prevent-Teach-Reinforce for Young Children within public early intervention services in Quebec, Canada. Using an adapted framework, we systematically documented 20 protocol modifications and adaptations, analyzed their rationale, related decision-making patterns, and consequences for implementation, research, and partnership outcomes. Three contextual factor clusters precipitated modifications: the restructuring of the provincial health system, the COVID-19 pandemic, and organizational instability in leadership and personnel. Adaptations and modifications fell into three thematic patterns: (1) strategic prioritization of immediate intervention delivery and project survival over research integrity (7); (2) participant-centered flexibility supporting accessibility (4); and (3) cumulative degradation through passive losses and structural failures (9). While many adaptations aligned with research-community partnership values by maximizing community benefit, they compromised research rigor (and sustainability) through losses in fidelity, internal validity, and data quality. We present our analytical approach building on several implementation science-based frameworks to systematically document research decisions, trade-offs, and gains/losses and share recommendations for responsive, transparent community-partnered research in similar contexts.