VoiceIn App for Mental Health Research
What are we trying to do?
VoiceIn is a digital platform designed to enhance public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) in research.
VoiceIn was co-designed with the people who will use it to create an effective tool that enables users to respond rapidly to mental health research ideas and provide feedback on ongoing projects.
Why is it important?
We want to enable as many people as possible to contribute to mental health research. Some people find it difficult to attend face to face PPIE workshops and focus groups (for example, due to time or travel constraints). Making opportunities available within an app that people can use at any time to provide ideas and feedback will increase PPIE opportunities and make sure that every voice can be heard, supporting a more inclusive and representative research process.
How are we doing it?
We have worked and continue to work extensively with members of the public, mental health researchers and third sector organisations to co-design and test the app to ensure it is fit for purpose.
Who are we working with?
The Digital Health Software Team at the University of Manchester have built the digital platform to support the delivery of the app.
To ensure the app meets the needs of people who are interested in contributing to research in this way, we are working with:
- third sector organisations,
- members of the public,
- mental health service users, and
- mental health researchers
We are also working with a wide-ranging mental health stakeholder group to raise awareness about the app.
Funding
This study was funded using part of £750k additional funding from NIHR to support Mental Health Research across Greater Manchester.
VoiceIn has now been awarded £500k from the NIHR-MRC Better Methods Better Research programme to co-deliver and evaluate the digital platform. This will increase young people’s PPIE in health and biomedical research, as well as enhancing and socially normalising research involvement and enabling sustained, meaningful participation in diverse and relevant opportunities.
£25k from DATAMIND (an MRC-funded mental health data hub) has also been awarded to help with promotion of the app.
Downloadable resources
More information
Programme Manager
Gill Rizzello
gill.rizzello@manchester.ac.uk