| Abstrakt: |
Background: Within the contemporary policy turn towards co-production and co-research in Sweden, older people, practitioners and researchers alike have expressed uncertainty about how to undertake co-research. Moreover, scepticism persists about the merits and contributions of co-research and co-production to research and service development. In this paper, we aim to describe a co-research model developed with older care-experienced lay co-researchers and explore the utility of our model's outcomes to social care research and practice. Method: In a Participatory Action Research project, we established a team of three co-researchers by professional experience and eight lay co-researchers by lived experience who were over age 75. Our team undertook a complete study cycle from inception and funding through to knowledge exchange and dissemination. Our process lasted one year and comprised three phases: the group alone establishing collective knowledge, testing knowledge in peer interviews with acquaintances, exchanging knowledge in events with multi-sector actors. We generated and analysed data concurrently in fortnightly workshops and round-table meetings using procedures inspired by framework analysis to produce themes illustrated by vignettes. Findings: We highlight our co-research model's utility to social research, policy and practice under three themes. Expressly, how our approach (1) reaches and engages older people who are isolated at home, (2) generates out-of-the box thinking and innovative solutions for service development and research, (3) recognizes and benefits from older people's authentic experience and knowledge. We critically reflect upon these three themes and the conditions that lead towards or away from the adoption of key co-research principles. Conclusions: Public services and research and development units working in the interests of older people can take inspiration from our co-research model when seeking to meet the challenges brought by new reforms towards closer community involvement. Despite messiness in the process, integrating and embedding principled co-research and co-production can bring clarity and structure to the issues that matter most to older people, and draw organisations closer to the communities they serve. Plain English summary: In this paper we respond to the call for clearer descriptions of how co-research is carried out and contributes to developing eldercare services and building new knowledge. Our co-research team includes three researchers with professional experience of health and social care for older people, and eight researchers aged over 75 with lived experience of giving or receiving formal or informal care. Over one year we conducted a whole research cycle (from funding and study design, to presenting findings and planning new research) in a three-phase process: (1) the group worked alone to pool their knowledge on a topic that was important to them, (2) they tested this knowledge by interviewing other older people, and (3) they shared this knowledge with professionals in research and development units, eldercare services and wider stakeholder organisations. In undertaking and describing our co-research we found that our way of working was useful for social care research and practice in Sweden, which faces new legislative and policy reforms. Specifically, we saw that our co-research model reached and engaged with older people that services often consider hard to reach due to isolation at home. Moreover, our model gave us a deepened understanding of issues that mattered which led to out-of-the-box thinking that could contribute fresh ideas to services aiming to solve complex problems. Finally, for research to genuinely benefit from older people's lived experience, older people must have influence at the earliest opportunity in a flexible approach that breaks intergenerational taboos and provides space for knowledge to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
Full text from SpringerLink