INVOLVE, an advisory body established and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR),
defines Patient and Public Involvement (PPI), or recently more collectively referred to as Public Involvement as research carried out ‘with;
or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, about’ or ‘for’ them.
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Whilst biomechanical engineering is a multidisciplinary field that encourages collaboration between engineers and healthcare professionals,
research generally continues to be conducted ’on’ or ’for’ patients rather than ’with’ them; i.e. it is a discipline that remains largely
technology-driven. Therefore, there is scope to incorporate more patient and public involvement practices in engineering research and show how
valuable it is in developing better knowledge of and interventions for conditions, of which researchers often have no experience.
A postgraduate research project concerning the characterisation of the key clinical, biomechanical and social factors associated with hand joint
diseases such as osteoarthritis (OA) aims to combine computational modelling methods and public involvement. Since incorporating PPI in their
respective projects, reserachers in the school of Engineering at the University of Southampton have seen first-hand how consulting and collaborating
with members of the public can help to identify and prioritise research areas as well as to build an active and equal relationship between researchers
and the public.
In the early public invovlement sessions, members of the public living with hand OA addressed the lack of knowledge of hand OA compared to hip or
knee OA, both amongst the general public and researchers, which emphasised the need for more information on hand OA treatment and self-management
techniques. Since we have formed the ’How Would You HAND-le this’ project team, consisting of public contributors and researchers, to address these
shortcomings directly by raising awareness of what it is like to live with hand OA and communicate to researchers the importance of incoporating
these lived-experience insights in the development of healthcare tools or interventions.
To learn more about public invovlement in research, head over to the resource tab...