Partnering with patients: how did you involve patients in your research?

With this journal issue, we are introducing a new requirement for authors of original research papers to tell us how they have involved patients, or service users, in the conception, design, conduction and interpretation of their research. We are doing this because we think it will help us publish better papers – meaning papers better able to improve clinical outcomes - and because we think it is the right thing to do. Involving patients in research is a step towards reducing bias and waste in research1 as well as the kind of injustice which arises when the views of relevant stakeholders are discounted or downgraded.2 We are not the first to take such an initiative – the BMJ has led the way with its Patient Partnership Strategy, …