Engaging With Patients

When and how you engage patients depends on your research project, however we have a few general tips:

Engage patients as early in the research process as possible

• It’s never too late to involve patients, but it is more effective and meaningful to begin engaging patients in earlier stages of the research process.

Think about who you want to involve as a patient

• Where would their expertise be most valuable in your project (i.e. identifying research priorities, providing feedback on public facing material, etc.)? The graphic below shows how you can give patient partners increasing influence in the research.
• Discuss these thoughts with your patients – how are they interested in being involved? Sometimes the level of engagement may depend on the time your patient partners can commit to the project.
• Set clear expectations around involvement so everyone on the team knows what is expected of them.

Communicate with your patient partners

• Keep your patient partners updated on the progress of the research, even if it is to say that you’re waiting on external factors. They may not be familiar with how research typically progresses.