blog
Patient and public involvement at the Centre for Dementia
This year the Centre for Dementia dedicated our annual event to patient and public involvement. We were keen to showcase the many good inclusive research studies at Institute of Mental Health, but we also committed to improving how we do this across the Centre.
Patient and public involvement (referred to as PPI, which can be confusing!) is a way of ensuring that our academic research is relevant and meaningful to people that it is aiming to benefit; i.e. people with dementia and their carers. We aim to include people at an early stage of a research project to enable their views to be able to influence the design of the research study. Involvement is separate from participation in a research study; when you may be interviewed or given a new treatment as part of the research. For involvement, researchers are seeking your knowledge and experiences and we also refer to these people as ‘experts by experience’.
Peter Riley got the day started by explaining his role within Alzheimer’s Society Research Volunteer Network. Along with many other people across the country, the volunteers are consulted on research funded by Alzheimer’s Society and comment on the importance of the topic and likelihood of leading to benefits to people with dementia and their carers. If you are interested in this network, see the following website: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=1109
Three presentations gave examples of how ongoing research has involved people. Each research project was jointly presented by the expert by experience as well as the academic. If you would like to follow up these projects, see the following links:
Falls in Care Homes (FinCH):
Promoting Independence in Dementia (PRIDE):
http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/project/AF2A9C56-6E5C-4273-9455-1025314E2C2B
Broadening our Understanding of Good Home Care:
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/dementia/projects/bough/index.aspx
Between these presentations we held workshop sessions to discuss ways to improve patient and public involvement. There are many challenges for PPI, including raising awareness and recruitment. We would like a greater representation from Black and Minority Ethnic communities within our PPI groups, so we need better outreach and a warm welcome. The practical aspects of transport and potentially organising respite to enable a carer to attend a meeting. However we also were keen to explore the positives of PPI, including the warmth and sharing of experiences within the PPI group. Clearly, there are many technical aspects of research which shouldn’t get in the way of involving patients, carers and the public. However we aim to develop training sessions to enable people to gain confidence within the research projects.
To close the event, we had a summary discussion, as well as considering what next steps the Centre could take to promote and enable greater public participation in all of our research projects. If you are interested in becoming involved, please get in touch to discuss this further:
Neil Chadborn 0115 8232471 [email protected]
Neil Chadborn
Research fellowFaculty of Medicine
University of Nottingham
Neil’s research interest is the public health of dementia and the wellbeing of older people. He is currently researching how voluntary sector organisations are commissioned to support older people in the community. This is part of a research programme called Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care, funded by National Institute of Health Research.
