Working together in joint pain research

2008 Conference

The Arthritis Research Campaign National Primary Care Centre has been working with patients and other people who use our research since 2001. We have defined “users” as patients and the public, but also include health care staff who will use the results of research (clinicians, managers and policy makers). We have set up two formal groups. First we have a User Involvement Forum which is made up of people with different types of joint problems. Second, we have a Knee Pain Forum to discuss issues of prevention of knee pain and disability. In our presentation we will give examples of the activity of these groups and what is it like being in a user involvement group. We will also cover how we work together on:

Individual project steering groups

Writing grant applications

Recruitment of research staff

Deciding on research methodology

We hope that people will learn about some examples of different ways to involve a wide range of people (patients, patient representatives and other stakeholders) in health care research.

We will highlight some issues for discussion that we have experienced including: matching national calls for research with patient and public involvement; payment; access, recruitment and workload.