Co-learning commentary: a patient partner perspective in mental health care research.

Although including patients as members of research teams is becoming more common, there is little information about how to do this successfully. There are even fewer accounts written by patient partners themselves. We argue that successful patient engagement accepts and celebrates the patient partner experience. In this article, we reflect on and share our experiences as patient partners in a Canadian mental health research project. Early on in the project, we were asked to choose which streams of work we would like to work on. In addition, we helped develop surveys about patient engagement in the project. We also had time set aside at each meeting for patient updates. Importantly, we steered the team towards using different mental health terms because they had less stigma and better fit patients' experiences. We offer the following 'lessons learned' about how to engage patients successfully in mental health research, but they are also likely to apply to most health research studies: (1) Engage Early, Often, and with Respect; (2) Carve out and Create a Safe Place; (3) Draw on Lived Experience; (4) Build Trust in the Research Team; (5) Listen, Learn, then Find a New Language; and (6) Cultivate Inclusion Throughout the Project. We believe that the lived experience of patients can and should go hand-in-hand with research. This helps to make sure that the research findings reflect the actual experiences and knowledge of patients. We hope that this article will be a useful guide to other patients and researchers.