Evidence shows that public and patient involvement in research has a positive effect on its quality and end-results. Thus, public and patient involvement in all stages of research is becoming commonplace. There are limited detailed examples however, that describe how to make this possible, especially for those doing PhD research. Doctoral researchers are often new to research practice or have limited experience and are often bound by strict time and financial constraints. It is also not usually a requirement of the award to involve public and patients in their research. Hence, they may not feel confident or motivated to involve or engage with public and patients during their research. We, four doctoral researchers, share examples from our own research studies that have included different approaches to public and patient involvement. Two studies formed public and patient advisory groups who helped design the research questions, data collection tools and recruitment methods. One enlisted the help of an online public and patient panel from a local hospital. A different study worked with patients from an established group to help define key medical words. We did face some challenges, such as the need to develop good group work skills and to apply for grants to cover reimbursement, but we all found it beneficial to involve patients in our studies. We noticed a positive effect on each study’s progression and an improvement in our own self-esteem. In addition, having public and patient involvement helped reduce the isolation we felt as doctoral researchers. Thus, we strongly encourage more doctoral researchers to involve public and patients in their studies. Public and patient involvement (PPI) has been shown to have a positive impact on health and social care research. However, adequate examples describing how to operationalise effective PPI, especially in doctoral studies, are lacking. Hence, doctoral researchers new to research, or those with limited experience, can be discouraged from facilitating PPI in their research. This paper aims to describe and discuss in detail the approaches used by four doctoral researchers to incorporate PPI at different stages of their research studies from study design to disseminating findings. We aim to inform other doctoral researchers about the challenges and limitations relating to PPI that we faced. Through these, we share pragmatic recommendations for facilitating PPI during doctoral studies. The description of four case studies demonstrated that PPI could be incorporated at various stages during doctoral research. This has had a beneficial impact on our research study progression, researcher self-esteem and lastly, helped alleviate researcher isolation during doctoral studies.

中文翻译：

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患者和公众参与设计和开展博士研究：原因和方法

证据表明，公众和患者参与研究对其质量和最终结果有积极影响。因此，公众和患者参与研究的各个阶段变得司空见惯。然而，有限的详细示例描述了如何使这成为可能，尤其是对于那些从事博士研究的人。博士研究人员通常是研究实践的新手或经验有限，并且经常受到严格的时间和财务限制。该奖项通常也不要求公众和患者参与他们的研究。因此，他们可能没有信心或动力在研究期间参与或接触公众和患者。我们，四位博士研究人员，分享了我们自己的研究中的例子，其中包括公众和患者参与的不同方法。两项研究组成了公共和患者咨询小组，帮助设计研究问题、数据收集工具和招募方法。其中一个寻求当地医院的在线公众和患者小组的帮助。另一项研究与来自已建立群体的患者合作，以帮助定义关键医学词汇。我们确实面临一些挑战，例如需要培养良好的团队合作技能和申请补助金以支付报销，但我们都发现让患者参与我们的研究是有益的。我们注意到对每项研究的进展都有积极的影响，并提高了我们的自尊心。此外，公众和患者的参与有助于减少我们作为博士研究人员所感受到的孤立感。因此，我们强烈鼓励更多的博士研究人员让公众和患者参与他们的研究。公众和患者参与 (PPI) 已被证明对健康和社会护理研究产生积极影响。然而，缺乏足够的例子来描述如何实施有效的 PPI，尤其是在博士研究中。因此，可能不鼓励刚开始研究的博士研究人员或经验有限的博士研究人员在他们的研究中促进 PPI。本文旨在详细描述和讨论四位博士研究人员在从研究设计到传播结果的不同阶段将 PPI 纳入研究的方法。我们的目标是让其他博士研究人员了解我们面临的与 PPI 相关的挑战和限制。通过这些，我们分享了在博士学习期间促进 PPI 的务实建议。四个案例研究的描述表明，PPI 可以在博士研究的各个阶段纳入。这对我们的研究进展、研究人员的自尊心产生了有益的影响，最后，有助于缓解研究人员在博士研究期间的孤立感。