Evidence Library

Abstract:

This paper reflects on intiatives that have been developed at the Royal Bank of Scotland Centre for the Older Person's Agenda that aim to support older people in partnership working in research and development work. It reports on the benefits of working in partnership with older people, the challenges for researchers and issues that need to be considered in the future.

• better access to marginalised groups
• more accessible information
• better dissemination of information to peers
• greater empathy with other older people in interviews.

One of the key issues raised is the role of user researchers. Should they play a research assistant role (that is the same as the researchers) or is there something about their role which is distinct? Should the training provided be any different to the training given to research students, that is an introduction to research methods? Or is specific training needed for user researchers?

• the need to be critical about why it is important to involve users in research
• being clear about what involvement means
• whether older people want to control research and whether research led by older people has better outcomes than partnerships
• older people's motivation to get involved.

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Related entry: none currently available

Categories: health
public health
social care
Designing research
Undertaking research
Writing up and disseminating
impact on research
impact on research ethics
impact of public involvement
reflecting on public involvement in research
journal article
Recruitment

Date Entered: 2007/02/20

Date Edited: 2012/11/20