Public contributors' preferences for the organisation of remote public involvement meetings in health and social care: a discrete choice experiment study

Introduction
Covid-19 expanded the use of remote working to engage with public contributors in health and social care research. These changes have the potential to limit the ability to participate in PPIE for some public contributors. It is therefore important to understand public contributors’ preferences, so that remote working can be organised in an optimal way to encourage rather than discourage participation.
Methods
We use an economic preference elicitation tool, a Discrete Choice Experiment
(DCE), via an online survey, to estimate public contributors’ preferences for and
trade-offs between different features of remote meetings. The features were
informed by previous research to include aspects of remote meetings that were
relevant to public contributors and amenable to change by PPIE organisers.
Results
We found that public contributors are more likely to participate in a PPIE project
involving remote meetings if: they are given feedback about participation; allowed to switch their camera off during meetings and step away if/when needed; were under 2.5 hours long; organised during working hours; and are chaired by a moderator who can ensure that everyone contributes. Different combination of these features can cause estimated project participation to range from 23% to 94%. When planning PPIE and engaging public contributors, we suggest that resources are focused on training for moderators and ensuring public contributors receive meeting feedback.
Discussion and Conclusion
Project resources should be allocated to maximise project participation. We provide recommendations for those who work in public involvement and organise meetings on how resources, such as time and financial support, should be allocated. These are based on the preferences of existing public contributors who have been involved in health and social care research.