At Cochrane Common Mental Disorders we recognise it is essential we bring the voice of people with lived experience of mental health problems into the work that we do.
Public involvement is seen as a way to improve the quality and conduct of research, inform the exchange of knowledge between researchers and academics, and drive the translation of research and its positive impact on people beyond the academic community. It is also crucial for ensuring that the patient and public voice is integral to all aspects of health and social care related research.
Cochrane uses the term consumers to represent patients, carers and family members with first-hand experience of a healthcare condition. As a Cochrane consumer, you can play a vital role within Cochrane, providing a non-clinical perspective on the health evidence presented in Cochrane reviews.
How do we work with Cochrane Consumers?
Here are some examples of how we involve Cochrane consumers in our work:
- Proactively include consumer peer review for all our Cochrane Reviews & protocols
- Encourage our authors to involve consumers in their work
- Support consumer involvement in the development of our dissemination products (e.g. infographics)
- Involve consumers in our priority setting work
Voice of Experience College
To help improve capacity to involve people with lived experience, in 2019/20 we ran a bespoke voluntary opportunity in York for volunteers with lived experience of common mental health conditions to join our first Voice of Experience College.
Cochrane Consumer Network
The Cochrane Consumer Network is a large and growing community of over 1,750 people in 79 countries across the world. The Cochrane Consumer Network is open to any patients, carers, family members and others who are interested in high-quality health evidence.