What matters to you? Public and patient involvement in the design stage of research

Public and patient involvement is critical to ensure that research is relevant and addresses what matters most to the person through co-production. Involvement at the design stage where ideas for research are developed prior to formal ethical approval, can positively influence the direction of research design, methods, and outcomes. Although ethical approval is not required at this stage, being ethically conscious is imperative to prevent unwarranted unethical practices. To ensure this, the public and patient intervention at the design stage of a doctoral research project was benchmarked against Pandya-Woods 10 ethically conscious standards and the INVOLVE values and principles framework. Ethical approval was also gained for publication.