Abstract
BackgroundDespite increasing interest in patient involvement in health care research, researchers may be uncertain about the benefits of involving patients in the design and conduction of clinical studies. We aimed to evaluate the impact of patient involvement on patient recruitment and retention in a clinical study of PET/CT in women with advanced breast cancer. Further, we report our experience regarding the researchers’ attitudes towards involving patients as partners in the research process.MethodsTwo patient representatives from the Danish Breast Cancer Organization were invited as partners in the research team. These patient partners were asked to contribute in particular to participator information material and evaluation of ethical aspects of the study. The impact of patient involvement on patient recruitment was evaluated by comparing expected versus actual number of patients recruited, and then relating it to patient recruitment in a similar study at the same institution that did not involve patients as research partners.ResultsHaving patients as partners in the research team led to a major revision of the participator information material and improved patient recruitment. The expected number of patients was 260, but 380 were actually enrolled within the planned study period, thus 146% of the expected patient recruitment. In the previous study, only 100 of the expected 150 patients were enrolled during a 10-month extended study period, i.e. 67% of the expected number. Patient retention in the current study was high, with 86% of eligible patients attending follow-up scans. We observed initial resistance amongst researchers against inviting patients as team partners. This resistance gradually lessened during the study, and the most reluctant researchers at the beginning of the study later applauded the collaboration and the ideas generated by the patient representatives.ConclusionInvolving patients as partners in the research team resulted in major changes to the participator information material and contributed to higher than expected patient recruitment and retention. Furthermore, we observed a positive change of attitude amongst the researchers towards patient involvement in the research process.Trial registrationOngoing study: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03358589).Previous study: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01552655).
Highlights
Despite increasing interest in patient involvement in health care research, researchers may be uncertain about the benefits of involving patients in the design and conduction of clinical studies
Previous clinical study without patient and public involvement (PPI) In a previous study from our department at Odense University Hospital, the use of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) was compared with the standard breast cancer recurrence examination program of computed tomography (CT) scan and bone scintigraphy (NCT01552655) [13]
We found that PET/CT had higher accuracy than CT and bone scintigraphy, and it was implemented as the standard examination for breast cancer recurrence at our institution
Summary
Despite increasing interest in patient involvement in health care research, researchers may be uncertain about the benefits of involving patients in the design and conduction of clinical studies. We report our experience regarding the researchers’ attitudes towards involving patients as partners in the research process. Patients and members of the public have an important role in health care research due to their lived experience of the condition under study [1]. The impact of PPI on patient recruitment seems greatest if the patient representatives have lived experience of the health condition under study [4]. There is an increasing interest in the impact of involving patients as partners in clinical studies, PPI appears to be more common in qualitative than quantitative research [4, 5]. PPI is suggested to have an impact on participant retention only few studies have reported on this, and no significant effect has yet been shown [4]
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