Patient and public involvement in hearing research: opportunities, impact and reflections with case studies from the Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness

Patient and public involvement (PPI) in research improves relevance to end users and improves processes including recruitment participants. PPI in our research has gone from being non-existent to ubiquitous over a few years. We provide critical reflections on the benefits and challenges of PPI. Case studies are reported according to a modified GRIP2 framework; the aims, methodology, impact of PPI and critical reflections on each case and our experiences with PPI in general. We report five UK projects that included PPI from teenagers, families, people living with dementia, autistic people, and people from South Asian and d/Deaf communities. Our experience has progressed from understanding the rationale to grappling methodologies and integrating PPI in our research. PPI took place at all stages of research, although commonly involved input to design including recruitment and development of study materials. Methodologies varied between projects, including PPI co-investigators, advisory panels and online surveys. On-going challenges include addressing social exclusion from research for people that lack digital access following increasing on-line PPI and involvement from underserved communities. PPI was initially motivated by funders; however the benefits have driven widespread PPI, ensuring our research is relevant to people living with hearing loss.