Meaningful Engagement of Patients in Research

Engaging patients as research partners is increasingly recognized as essential to producing relevant, credible, and impactful research. Evidence suggests that meaningful patient engagement aligns research with patient needs and priorities, improves feasibility and acceptability of interventions, enhances recruitment and retention of participants, and promotes uptake of study findings. However, there are persistent challenges, including tokenistic involvement, poorly defined roles, limited scope of influence, and insufficient engagement across all research phases. Published frameworks and evidence-based best practices highlight mutual respect, equity, trust, empowerment, and shared ownership as central to ensuring that patient contributions are substantive and integrated in all research phases. Strategies such as capacity-building through training, co-developing communication plans, demonstrating flexibility, providing fair compensation, and assessing the quality of the engagement support meaningful engagement. In this perspective, we share the insights of patients and researchers working together on an ongoing multicenter, pragmatic clinical trial, review key principles of patient engagement in research, provide examples of engagement from our trial, and offer practical guidance for supporting meaningful partnership between patients and researchers.