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The University of Southampton
Southampton Clinical Trials Unit

Patient And Public Involvement at the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit

Widening participation in patient and public involvement (PPI) for trials being conducted at Southampton Clinical Trials Unit: A Community Study

Widening participation

Clinical trials of new medicines or health technologies rely on patients, carers or even healthy volunteers agreeing to take part in research and it is therefore vital that patients have a say in how this research is done. For this reason, patient and public involvement (PPI) is heavily embedded into research conducted at the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit. 

But we know that certain groups and communities are under-served by clinical research. We therefore need to ensure that PPI in the design and conduct of our trials is reflective of the whole population, to encourage more people from diverse backgrounds to take part in research.

With funding from the Univeristy of Southampton's Publice Engagment in Research Unit (PERu), we carried out a community-based study involving focus groups and online interviews to help us better understand the barriers that may prevent or dissuade people from under-served groups from taking part in PPI for clinical trials and learn how we can overcome these.

Participant demographics

Using information and comments from these sessions, we have co-produced a video and resources that can be used by researchers to reduce these barriers when conducting PPI as part of their future research projects, improving the diversity and inclusion of patient and public involvement and making healthcare research better for everyone.

Resources

Through the Widening Participation project, we identified eight key themes that are important for making PPI inclusive and accessible to diverse communities:

Themes


Many of these themes overlap and require similar steps from research teams to implement change. We have created prompt cards to help you incorporate these inclusive practices into your PPI.

Download the themes and prompt cards

Watch the video

This video was co-produced with the team at Drop The Mask Productions CIC, a Southampton-based media and IT company who promote inclusive employment opportunities and who helped facilitate one of our focus groups. The video contains direct quotes from people involved in the Widening Participation project and is voiced by some of those who took part.

 

Information coming soon.

 

 

Our current involvement opportunities

 

Focus group

Do you have experience of living with, and being treated for, lymphoma?

Join an online focus group to give feedback on a new trial which aims to improve treatment outcomes for patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

We are looking for people who have experience of being treated for DLBCL or another type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or who are a close family member or carer of someone affected by DLBCL, to join an online focus group on Tuesday 26th March 2024 at 2pm. Your feedback will help provide a patient perspective on this proposed study and help guide the trial design.

You will be reimbursed £25/hr for your time.

If you are interested in this role, please see the full PPI advert and email SCTU PPI coordinator Liz Allaway to register your interest - L.Allaway@soton.ac.uk.

The deadline for registering your interest is Thursday 14th March 2024.

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