Rational pharmacotherapy researchers – check out the patient participation checklist

A joint working group of the Research Network for Rational Pharmacotherapy, EUPATI Finland (in Finnish) and the Medicines Information Network has published a patient participation checklist for researchers. The checklist is the first guideline for Finnish researchers to encourage patient participation and cooperation with patient organisations. 

Patient participation is seen as an increasingly important part of research in medicine and health sciences, and the promotion of engagement has been recognised definitively in national health and pharmaceutical policies. Cooperation between researchers, patients and patient organisations improves the quality of research and helps to develop the objectives, methods and usability of results from the patient perspective. In rational pharmacotherapy research, ensuring patient engagement supports a more patient-centred approach in the different stages of the pharmacotherapy process. 

The checklist and its appendices aim to encourage researchers to develop close long-term cooperation with patient organisations and to provide concrete tips on the stages of research where the patient perspective should be taken into account. The aim is to strengthen patient engagement in studies on rational pharmacotherapy, medicines information and medication safety to increase the impact of this research. 

The materials are freely available and distributable.

• Patient participation checklist for researchers (pdf) (in Finnish)
• Appendix 1. Why should rational pharmacotherapy researchers cooperate with patient organisations? (png) (in Finnish)
• Appendix 2. How can I as a researcher develop cooperation with patient organisations? (png) (in Finnish)
• Accessible text equivalents for the appendices 1 and 2 (pdf) (in Finnish)

The checklist and appendix images will be translated into Swedish and English later.