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What to Include: Call for Patient and Public Partners

Patient and Community Engagement

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Overview

A summary of what to include when making a call for patient and public partners in health research.

What to Include in a Call for Patient & Public Partners

Overall tips

  • Use lay language
  • Aim for a grade 5 reading level
  • Keep as short as possible (one page or less)
  • Define acronyms
  • Avoid medical jargon

Information to include

1) Project Title

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2) Lay Language Overview of Project

  • What the project is about
  • Relevance to potential patient and public partners

3) Lay Language Overview of Engagement Opportunity

  • Eligibility: Who are you looking for? What experiences do they need to bring to the
    opportunity?
  • What partners are being asked to do
  • How partners will be engaged (specific activities, e.g. advisory group, discussion group,
    surveys)
  • Which specific research decisions partners will be able to inform
  • How partners’ input will be used in decision-making (i.e. level of engagement)

4) Roles/Responsibilities

  • What is expected of partners (training, preparation, participation, reporting, etc.)
  • What partners can expect of the research team members

5) Time Commitment and Duration

  • When engagement is expected to start, in relation to overall project timelines
  • Key timepoints of involvement (e.g. recruitment, interpretation)
  • Number of estimated hours per week/month
  • Expected duration of commitment and when/why this may change

6) Honorarium/compensation and reimbursement

Important note: honorarium/compensation refers to paying partners for their time, energy and expertise, and
may be considered income by the Canada Revenue Agency. Reimbursement (or preferably, covering costs up
front) is payment to cover costs partners incur as part of engagement, and should be separate from
honorarium/compensation payment.

  • How much partners will be paid (hourly/weekly/per meeting) and in what form (if open to
    ideas such as gift cards vs. cheques, this should be indicated)
  • Which costs will be covered up front (e.g. parking passes, provision of internet/calling cards,
    bus tickets, printed materials provided, etc.)
  • Which costs partners may incur, if and how these will be reimbursed

7) Contact Information

  • Deadline to express interest in opportunity
  • Who to contact for more information and to express interest and their role in the project and
    engagement activities