News

Small Grant Powers Communication and Inclusivity Project in the South West

6 January 2020
3 min read

Jennifer Mbanu, Research Practitioner with Devon Partnership Trust (DPT), is conducting her first self-initiated research project thanks to a Patient Participation Involvement and Engagement Small Grant. Her work investigates which communication methods are most effective for contacting patients with psychosis. She intends to use the findings to help research delivery staff and patients improve access to research opportunities by providing them with a co-produced toolkit on preferred contact methods.

Jennifer describes her project: “My research looks into a population that is marginalised and hard to reach and [it aims to] increase their involvement in research. I devised a short questionnaire for people with psychosis because I’ve found it can be difficult to let them know about research opportunities. I wanted to get a better idea of how to be inclusive.”

Grants to Support Innovation

The small grants typically range from £500 - £1000 and are designed to support innovation in emerging research practice. The NIHR report Going the Extra Mile identified that:

A diverse and inclusive public involvement community is essential if research is to be relevant to population needs and provide better health outcomes for all (recommendation 10)
The public, researchers and health professionals should be empowered and supported better to work together (recommendation 6)

Jennifer is conducting structured interviews exploring:

Preferred method(s) by which patients with psychosis would like to be contacted about research
Psychosis patients’ attitudes to texting as a proposed method for informing them about research
Attitudes of psychosis population in relation to being contacted from a withheld number

‘Exciting Pioneering Work’

She has completed 22 questionnaires and aims to achieve 50 before analysing data and publishing her findings. Her enthusiasm for the project is clear, as she states:

“I want to be part of exciting pioneering work that can improve things for the future. I’m big on inclusivity; everyone has a voice and opportunity to improve health and it’s important to not leave people behind. Everyone has something to say and it’s important they have a chance to say it.”

Jennifer has been working with the Research Team at DPT delivering research in an acute hospital setting and in the community. She describes how a challenge she faced informed and motivated her research project:

“Working on the SCENE study gave me an insight into how difficult it is to engage with people experiencing psychosis as they may not answer the phone or attend a meet up. I looked for some guidance on the topic but there was nothing out there. I’ve been working on the [SCENE] study for two years and I’ve had some good outcomes but I wanted to look into the topic properly. Research gives you a substantial evidence base that can [then] inform our practice. I devised a research questionnaire with patients with a lived experience of psychosis, and am now collecting the data and then will find consistent themes.”

Co-Production and Patient Involvement

Patient Participation Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) is a crucial part of effective research delivery in the NIHR. Jennifer co-produced her questionnaire with input from patients, their unique insights helped to refine the question to create meaningful set of questions. Ali Potter, PPIE Lead, said: “Focus groups are a small group of people brought together to talk about different aspects of a project. The purpose is to listen and gather information. It is a good way to find out how people feel or think about an issue, and to come up with possible solutions. Involving patients and the public in the design of the questionnaire will have meant that the survey captures the correct information. It is a good example of co-production.”

Jennifer’s describes her intended outcomes for her first self-initiated piece of research is to support her colleagues, improve practice and share her recommendations with as many people as she can:

“If we [DPT] get more psychosis studies we can add a caveat in the statement of activities with details of how to get in contact. I also want to make a toolkit from the findings and share it with Trusts and clinicians to act as reference information. I hope to present this at some mental health conferences at a poster presentation. I’ve never done this before but I’m up for it, you have to start somewhere.”