"Patient engagement is about meaningful collaboration. Patients become actively engaged in governance, priority setting, developing the research questions, and even performing certain parts of the research itself.

 

This type of participation helps to ensure that the research being conducted is relevant and valuable to the patients that it affects. Patient partners can also collaborate with the research team to summarize or share the results with target audiences (especially other patients) and with policy makers or other decision makers who may apply the results in a health or community setting". (Canadian Institute for Health Research)

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People with lived experience (i.e. patients and their caregivers) have an integral role within DEVOTION as partners within research. By engaging with people who are directly impacted by a health issue, our team has had the opportunity to collaborate, mutually learn from public stakeholders and create more solutions-focused research for people living health conditions.