Community stakeholder engagement during a vaccine demonstration project in Nigeria: lessons on implementation of the good participatory practice guidelines

INTRODUCTION: To report on the successes and challenges with implementing the good participatory practice guidelines for the Nigerian Canadian Collaboration on AIDS Vaccine (NICCAV) project. METHODS: An open and close ended questionnaire was administered to 25 randomly selected community stakeholders on the project. The questions sought information on perception about the community entry, constitution and function of the community advisory board (CAB) and community based organization (CBO), media engagement process, and research literacy programmes. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed and findings triangulated. RESULTS: The project exceeded its targets on CBO engagement and community members reached. Stakeholders had significant improvement in knowledge about HIV vaccine research design and implementation (p=0.004). All respondents felt satisfied with the community entry, CAB constitution process, function and level of media engagement; 40% were satisfied with the financial support provided; 70% felt the community awareness and education coverage was satisfactory; and 40% raised concerns about the study site selection with implications for study participants' recruitment. CONCLUSION: The NICCAV community stakeholder engagement model produced satisfactory outcomes for both researchers and community stakeholders. The inclusion of an advocacy and monitoring plan enabled it to identify important challenges that were of ethical concerns for the study.