Journal of Participatory Medicine
Co-production in research and healthcare, technology for patient empowerment and fostering partnership with clinicians.
Editor-in-Chief:
Amy Price, DPhil, Senior Research Scientist, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, USA
CiteScore 3.2
Recent Articles
The patient-provider relationship in obstetrics and gynecology (OBGYN) is uniquely complex due to the sensitive nature of examinations and topics. Patients often prefer health care providers who share similar racial, ethnic, gender, or linguistic backgrounds, particularly in sensitive health care situations, to improve communication and comfort, though historically, specific gender preferences for OBGYNs have not been evident.
Recovery colleges are service user–led educational interventions aiming at empowering people with mental health issues and promoting recovery through peer learning. Despite the increasing interest in recovery colleges in recent years and the demonstrated beneficial effects for users, there is limited research addressing aspects that influence their implementation. This knowledge is necessary for the successful integration of such interventions in various contexts.
Chlamydia remains prevalent worldwide and is considered a global public health problem. However, testing rates among young sexually active people remain low. Effective clinical management relies on screening asymptomatic patients. However, attending face-to-face consultations of testing for sexually transmitted infections is associated with stigmatization and anxiety. Self-testing technology (STT) allows patients to test themselves for chlamydia and gonorrhea without the presence of health care professionals. This may result in wider access to testing and increase testing uptake. Therefore, the sexual health clinic at Odense University Hospital has designed and developed a technology that allows patients to get tested at the clinic through self-collected sampling without a face-to-face consultation.
Peer specialists are hired, trained, and accredited to share their lived experience of psychiatric illness to support other similar individuals through the recovery process. There are limited data on the role of peer specialists in suicide prevention, including their role in intervention development.
Challenging encounters in health care professions, including in dentistry, are relatively common. Challenging encounters can be defined as stressful or emotional situations involving patients that could impact both treatment outcomes and patients’ experiences. Through written web-based reviews, patients can share their experiences with health care providers, and these posts can be a useful source for investigating patient satisfaction and their experiences of challenging encounters.
Patient-accessible electronic health records (PAEHRs) are assumed to enhance the quality of care, expressed in terms of safety, effectiveness, timeliness, person centeredness, efficiency, and equity. However, research on the impact of PAEHRs on the perceived quality of care among parents, children, and adolescents is largely lacking. In the Netherlands, a PAEHR (Iuvenelis) was developed for preventive child health care and youth care. Parents and adolescents had access to its full content, could manage appointments, ask questions, and comment on written reports.
Person-centered care (PCC) encourages patients to actively participate in health care, thus facilitating care that fits the life of the patient. Therefore, health care professionals (HCPs) need to know the patient. As part of a broad policy for improving PCC, a digital questionnaire (“We would like to know you”) consisting of 5 questions has previously been developed to help HCPs to get to know the patient with the help of patient and staff involvement.
Over the past decade, a growing body of scientific evidence has demonstrated that community engagement in research leads to more relevant research, enhances the uptake of research findings, and improves clinical outcomes. Despite the increasing need for the integration of community engagement methodologies into the scientific inquiry, doctoral and master's level competencies in the field of psychiatry often lack dedicated training or coursework on community engagement methodologies.
The Journal of Participatory Medicine introduces Extraordinary Lives, a new journal section celebrating the voices and work of steadfast advocates of participatory medicine that we have lost. This inaugural essay spotlights Casey Quinlan, a patient activist who effectively used her humor and incisive analysis of health care to encourage others to strive for meaningful change. A first-generation “professional patient,” Casey served as a role model who inspired many to share their stories and achieve genuine partnerships in care delivery. A maker of “good trouble,” her voice and stance were part of her power and influence in disrupting the status quo. We present her fight for personal access to health data, her aspiration for personally customized evidence, and her drive for all people to control their health and their health care.