Background Patient and public involvement means researchers working with members of the public, patients or carers to jointly plan and carry out research. Aim This article is written by members of three involvement groups, and the university employees that they work with. We wanted to jointly reflect on what enables our collaborative work, and what the challenges are for everyone involved. What we did and how we did it We wanted to establish what the literature defines as 'good' public involvement and compare this with processes and practices in our involvement groups. We therefore carried out a literature review and each group met separately to discuss what characterises good involvement, and what the challenges are. From these discussions we developed a set of descriptions about each group. We compared the literature review findings with what came out of the discussions within the involvement groups. Findings Some of the involvement principles from the literature were similar to the priorities of the involvement groups. In addition, the groups identified characteristics of 'good' involvement practice that were not reported in the literature: passion and enthusiasm, informal and welcoming meeting spaces, and opportunities to share lived experiences. In this article we present examples of how principles for good involvement are practiced in these groups, and difficulties we have experienced.
BackgroundParent carers of disabled children report poor physical health and mental wellbeing. They experience high levels of stress and barriers to engagement in health-related behaviours and with ‘standard’ preventive programmes (e.g. weight loss programmes). Interventions promoting strategies to improve health and wellbeing of parent carers are needed, tailored to their specific needs and circumstances.MethodsWe developed a group-based health promotion intervention for parent carers by following six steps of the established Intervention Mapping approach. Parent carers co-created the intervention programme and were involved in all stages of the development and testing. We conducted a study of the intervention with a group of parent carers to examine the feasibility and acceptability. Standardised questionnaires were used to assess health and wellbeing pre and post-intervention and at 2 month follow up. Participants provided feedback after each session and took part in a focus group after the end of the programme.ResultsThe group-based Healthy Parent Carers programme was developed to improve health and wellbeing through engagement with eight achievable behaviours (CLANGERS – Connect, Learn, be Active, take Notice, Give, Eat well, Relax, Sleep), and by promoting empowerment and resilience. The manualised intervention was delivered by two peer facilitators to a group of seven parent carers. Feedback from participants and facilitators was strongly positive. The study was not powered or designed to test effectiveness but changes in measures of participants’ wellbeing and depression were in a positive direction both at the end of the intervention and 2 months later which suggest that there may be a potential to achieve benefit.ConclusionsThe Healthy Parent Carers programme appears feasible and acceptable. It was valued by, and was perceived to have benefited participants. The results will underpin future refinement of the intervention and plans for evaluation.
To investigate social exclusion, 146 dyads of close friends (N = 292, ages 10, 12, and 14) were observed as they played a board game with a same-gender confederate actor, trained to be a difficult play partner. Verbalizations and gestures were coded for verbal and nonverbal social exclusion, verbal aggression, and verbal assertion. The results indicated few developmental differences. For verbal responses in the presence of the actor, boys were more socially exclusive and verbally aggressive than were girls. Girls engaged in more nonverbal social exclusion in the presence of the actor than did boys. Girls' socially exclusive behaviors were unrelated to other negative behaviors and more strongly related between friends in the actor's absence.
The University of Texas at Dallas, USA For an experimental study of children's responses to peer provocation, this investigation examined the correlations between children's observed behaviours and their self-reports of their emotional experiences, expressions, and social goals provided in an interview immediately following the provocation. Participants were 565 children (approximate ages 8, 10, and 12 years old) who were provoked in two ways in an experimental play session: By losing at a computer game they were playing for a desirable prize, and by being taunted by a peer actor. Children's responses to provocation were reliably coded for verbalisations, facial expressions, and gestures. Results indicated often signi cant but quite modest correlations between children's self-reports of their emotional behaviour and their behaviours as coded during the play session. For the magnitude of these correlations, there were not signi cant developmental differences, and the strength of the correlations did not differ for same-or for other-gender dyads. There was some evidence that for girls, self-reports corresponded to emotional behaviours more strongly than for boys.
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