TABLE 5.

Recommendations for how and what teams can do to support meaningful engagement of PPs in synthesis reviews

To ensure the ‘planned, supported and valued involvement of patients’,23 we recommend that:
PPs should be included right from inception because PP perspective can change the direction of the research. PPs opportunities to contribute be balanced with a manageable workload. PP need to know what is expected of them (and what their expectations are of the team), time commitments, and their role within the team at the outset. On‐going communication is needed to ensure clarity and permit adjustments through the project's lifespan. Training is tailored to individual PPs’ needs. Like every research team member, PP has a wide range of experiences and knowledge. Researchers need to understand this when developing relationships and preparing training. Researchers considering involving PPs in their reviews should plan for the additional time and adequate budget allocation to ensure PPs can engage in the process as fully as they desire.
To create a research environment that is conducive to effective contributions PP, we recommend:
Strong team communication. Communication is needed to create positive team dynamics in which PP can flourish, engage to their fullest extent, experience personal rewards and see the impact of their participation on health research. PP should feel comfortable presenting a different point of view and team dynamics should allow robust discussion. A significant part of this is researchers seeing PPs as possessing unique knowledge and that the POR endeavour is about joint discovery.