Researchers' experiences with patient engagement in health research: a scoping review and thematic synthesis

What matters to you? Public and patient involvement in the design stage of research

BACKGROUND

Public and patient involvement is critical to ensure that research is relevant and addresses what matters most to the person through co-production. Involvement at the design stage where ideas for research are developed prior to formal ethical approval, can positively influence the direction of research design, methods, and outcomes. Although ethical approval is not required at this stage, being ethically conscious is imperative to prevent unwarranted unethical practices. To ensure this, the public and patient intervention at the design stage of a doctoral research project was benchmarked against Pandya-Woods 10 ethically conscious standards and the INVOLVE values and principles framework. Ethical approval was also gained for publication.

MAIN BODY

Patient and public involvement was undertaken with two diverse patient and public groups as an agenda item in their regular Teams meeting. Thoughts on the research project, the timeline, what matters most to the individuals in the group with regarding the design and outcomes from the research, the best method for data collection for public research, and next steps were discussed.

CONCLUSION

Public and patient involvement had a positive influence on the design and outcomes of a doctoral research proposal and held the researcher accountable for impact of the research on the public. Positive changes to the research from working with public and patients exploring 'what matters to you' included: An ontological change in the way that the research was conducted, identification of some main themes to run as a thread throughout the research, development of content for an international scoping review, identification of the best method for data collection for patient research, and accountability of the researcher to write a plain English summary at the beginning of each thesis chapter, and a summary report at the end for dissemination.

Developing inclusive public involvement and engagement activities with secondary school students and educational professionals: a protocol

BACKGROUND

Public involvement and engagement (PI&E) is increasingly recognised as an important component of research. It can offer valuable insights from those with experiential knowledge to improve research quality, relevance, and reach. Similarly, schools are ever more common sites for health research and, more recently, PI&E. However, 'gold-standard' practice is yet to be established, and activities/approaches remain underreported. As a result, knowledge can remain localised or lost. Diversity and inclusion also remains a challenge.

METHODS

This protocol has been informed by UK national guidance, evidence-based frameworks and available implementation literature. It describes both rationale and approach to conducting PI&E activities within a secondary school context. Activities are designed to be engaging, safe and accessible to young people with diverse experiences, with scope to be iteratively developed in line with public collaborator preference.

DISCUSSION

Young people should be architects of their involvement and engagement. Ongoing appraisal and transparency of approaches to PI&E in school settings is crucial. Expected challenges of implementing this protocol include facilitating a safe space for the discussion of sensitive topics, absence and attrition, recruiting students with a diverse range of experiences, and potential knowledge and capacity barriers of both facilitator and contributors. Activities to mitigate these risks are suggested and explored.

Open Science Practices in Psychiatric Genetics: A Primer

Open science ensures that research is transparently reported and freely accessible for all to assess and collaboratively build on. Psychiatric genetics has led among the health sciences in implementing some open science practices in common study designs, such as replication as part of genome-wide association studies. However, thorough open science implementation guidelines are limited and largely not specific to data, privacy, and research conduct challenges in psychiatric genetics. Here, we present a primer of open science practices, including selection of a research topic with patients/nonacademic collaborators, equitable authorship and citation practices, design of replicable, reproducible studies, preregistrations, open data, and privacy issues. We provide tips for informative figures and inclusive, precise reporting. We discuss considerations in working with nonacademic collaborators and distributing research through preprints, blogs, social media, and accessible lecture materials. Finally, we provide extra resources to support every step of the research process.