Patient and Public Involvement is when patients, carers and members of the public are actively involved in research.

Involvement can include patients, carers and members of the public working together with researchers at all stages of the research cycle to:

• select research that is important and relevant to the public
• design and deliver projects
• develop understandable information sheets for people taking part in research
• carry out some aspects of the research (for example interviews)
• interpret the results of the research
• make sure the research is reported in understandable ways and that good research is heard about

PPI is crucial to make sure that research properly responds to the needs and interests of patients, carers, in a way that is less certain if research is developed by professional academics alone – researchers may not have first-hand experience of the illness they are researching and involvement can provide them with important insights.

 

More details of our PPI work, which is carried out as part of the NIHR-funded Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre, are available here.