Journal of Participatory Medicine

The Veterans Health Administration is promoting patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) collection for measurement-based mental health care. Understanding veteran preferences about how and when to complete PROMs is critical to support their implementation.

Recruiting and retaining adequate numbers of eligible participants remain the key challenges in clinical research. Understanding the factors associated with participants’ motivations is essential to support recruitment efforts, reduce early withdrawals, and consolidate commitment. The Oxford University Clinical Research Unit conducted a longitudinal study, named the SEED project, with a cohort of first- and third-year students at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Black and Hispanic/Latino communities experience disproportionate chronic pain and are underrepresented in pain research. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are promising tools for pain management. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that research using these tools engages all communities to make research findings more generalizable and reach all who may benefit. Lack of diversity in the research workforce itself is a key barrier to improving Black and Hispanic/Latino representation in pain research, and video-enhanced recruitment and consenting may be a useful tool to better engage Black and Hispanic/Latino communities.

Digital transformation is now a fundamental component of health care systems worldwide. To develop effective digital health strategies, it is essential to examine physicians’ perspectives on the barriers and facilitators of implementation, with particular attention to regional and cultural factors influencing technology adoption.

Abstract Policies governing healthcare professionals must be evidence-informed and include meaningful representation of all stakeholders, or commitments to quality and equity will remain shallow rhetoric. Physician associates, nurse practitioners and patients deserve full participation in decisions affecting their practice and patient care. The current healthcare landscape faces unprecedented workforce challenges, requiring a shift toward evidence-informed policy and the meaningful representation of all stakeholders. This editorial aims to advocate for the full participation of Physician Associates (PAs), Nurse Practitioners (NPs), or advanced practice providers and patient representatives in clinical and policy decisions, contrasting established global models with emerging frameworks to promote a more practical, team-based hierarchy. While recent reviews in the United Kingdom (UK) highlight a lack of localized, high-quality data, extensive evidence from the United States (US) and other international contexts demonstrates that PAs and NPs provide safe, effective care with clinical outcomes comparable to physicians. We argue that recognizing these professionals as integral members of the healthcare workforce, rather than mere stopgaps, is essential for improving care quality and patient well-being. This editorial recommends standardized credentialing, integrated educational pathways, and the inclusion of patient representatives as voting members in policy decisions to foster a truly participatory medicine model.

The Knowledge Translation Innovation Incubator (KTII) initiative, launched by the Knowledge Translation program of the CHILD-BRIGHT Strategic Patient Oriented Research Network, provided funding support for researchers and partners to experiment with various approaches and strategies to support the development of innovative KT research in the context of neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Shared decision-making is increasingly valued worldwide in pediatric care; nonetheless, its application in Japanese clinical practice remains in its early stages, particularly in areas with substantial medical uncertainty, such as food allergy (FA) management. Although oral immunotherapy (OIT) is a promising option for children with FA, its long-term effectiveness and safety remain under evaluation, providing families with limited evidence to navigate emotionally complex decisions. Despite this clinical uncertainty, decision aids (DAs) are beneficial for organizing information and supporting patients and families in making value-congruent choices. Involving children in these decisions is increasingly recognized as ethically and developmentally appropriate. DAs clarify treatment options and promote informed collaborative decisions. However, most DAs target adult users and do not explicitly encourage engagement with children's views.

Digital mental health interventions can be particularly effective for young people, who live more of their lives online than older generations. Co-designing mental health support with young people can combat the challenges of lack of engagement and sustained use. While this is increasingly common, there are often budget and timeline restraints in research settings which limits true co-design. As part of the Nurture-U project exploring a whole-university approach to student mental health, we co-adapted an existing digital platform – i-Spero – with university students. This paper is a reflection on the impact that our student advisors had on the end product, and where the guidance of the young people was implemented, and not implemented, within the existing research parameters.

Community advisors including patients, families, clinicians, and payers, are important partners who can guide clinical research; yet, there is little evidence documenting the impact of community engagement on study changes and outcomes.

Managing patients with multiple chronic comorbidities is complex and challenging within traditional healthcare systems due to the need for multidisciplinary expertise, longitudinal tracking, and coordination. The development of collaborative online platforms leveraging user-driven healthcare (UDHC) and medical cognition principles offers new avenues for addressing these complexities by facilitating remote, participatory, and evidence-informed case management.

Experiences of mental distress are considered difficult to communicate, particularly experiences of psychosis. Research indicates that the frequently used medical focus falls short in capturing the nuanced interpersonal dynamics that these altered states may involve. Psychosis may seem very different from a lived experience perspective than it does from a traditional psychiatric perspective. This calls for innovative lived experience–based methodologies. This paper presents the development and preliminary evaluation of a design prototype co-designed to strengthen the role of people experiencing psychosis in the care process and describes its design rationale.

Chronic stress in African American individuals is multilayered amid the context of experiences of racism and discrimination. Cortisol dynamic range (CDR) may be an indicator of chronic stress, but CDR is understudied in African American populations compared with White populations, and is hypothesized to differ by sex.