Everyone has a personal story to tell about facing a health problem or accessing health care. And researchers at the University of Pittsburgh want to hear those stories. People are invited to share their stories for the MyPaTH Story Booth project. During a conversation with a project staff member or with a friend, people’s experiences will be recorded in an audio booth set up in Oakland or shared over the phone. The recordings will be stored in an archive to which researchers will have access.
“We hope researchers will listen to these stories and get a better idea of what it’s like to be a patient or what it’s like to struggle to be healthy,” says Kathleen McTigue, MD, MPH, MS, associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. “We’re trying to get patients involved in the research process. If researchers want to be answering questions that are going to make a difference to patients’ care, we need to get patients involved so that we find out about what it’s like for patients to be ill, to stay healthy, in what ways it’s difficult to practice preventive health care and what it’s like to access the health care system.”
When people share their stories, they also have the option to say whether they want to be a part of the research process. “With patient-centered research, researchers aren’t just looking for people to be participants in their studies,” says Dr. McTigue. “They’re often looking for patients to join their research team and help shape a project to make sure it’s something of value.”
The “PaTH” network is a collection of researchers at universities, health care plans and other institutions that focus on patient-centered outcomes research. The network’s goal is to make it easier for researchers to do patient-centered research.
“We hope to help the researchers understand the patients’ perspectives and help make connections between them so these two important groups of people can really get to know each other better,” says Dr. McTigue.
If you are interested in participating in the Story Booth project, or want to learn more, go to https://goo.gl/fa2Dai. This study is one of 200+ research studies listed on the Pitt+MeTM website. Pitt+Me™ is a community of patients, volunteers, and researchers working together as partners in research and clinical trials to advance healthcare. You can play an important role in the process of discovery by joining Pitt+Me.
Like us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Pittsburgh-Courier/143866755628836?ref=hl
Follow @NewPghCourier on Twitter https://twitter.com/NewPghCourier
About Post Author
