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Trial Lecture – time and place
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Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Bodil Hansen Blix, UiT, The Arctic University of Norway,
- Second opponent: Research Nurse Susanne Friis Søndergård, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Emeritus Per Nortvedt, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor II Anners Lerdal, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Dr. polit. Christina Foss, University of Oslo
Summary
Patient involvement in research is politically initiated and required by several funding institutions. Even though involvement is portrayed as something beneficial, the collaboration between users and researchers is described as challenging.
The aim was to explore and describe the constructions of user involvement in research by gaining insight into users’ and researchers’ views of involvement and the way in which guidelines portray the collaboration process between them.
The data was collected from heterogenous focus group interviews consisting of both users and researchers and from guidelines which are intended to govern users and researchers into an equal collaboration.
In the focus group interviews we identified that negotiations regarding the types of knowledge took place. While users fight for acknowledgement of their experiential knowledge, they simultaneously ascribe the scientific knowledge a higher value. Researchers also ascribed the scientific knowledge a higher status.
Negotiations about “being a partner or not” could also be identified. Users assumed powerful positions and fought for their right to be acknowledged as partners, but their descriptions from previous involvement projects showed the opposite. Researchers were quite silent in the focus group discussions.
In two follow-up focus group interviews focusing on the construction of equity, users mainly constructed involvement as a democratic right, while researchers tend to construct research as something which leads to efficiency.
The analysis of guidelines showed that users were mainly portrayed as passive actors while researchers were portrayed as powerful actors due to their responsibilities. Consequently, the guidelines appear to uphold an unequal collaboration.
Overall, the thesis shows tensions between the users’ and researchers’ constructions of involvement. None of these constructions are right or wrong, involvement is simply seen from different positions.
Additional information
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