Department for Quality and Health Technology, Faculty of Health Sciences, SHARE-Center for Resilience in Healthcare, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway.
School of Psychology (Psychology), University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Health Expect. 2022 Feb;25(1):322-332. doi: 10.1111/hex.13383. Epub 2021 Nov 10.
In spite of adolescents' rights to be involved in decisions that concern their health and life, limited research has been published reporting on their involvement in mental health research. Therefore, we aim to present experiences and reflections based on the involvement of adolescents in mental health research, to describe the collaborative relationship between researchers and coresearchers, including the values that underpin their collaboration.
An autoethnographic approach was used, combined with group reflections. The process was jointly developed, carried out and analysed by adolescent coresearchers and the project's lead researcher over a period of 2 years. The article is jointly authored by the researcher and the ten coresearchers.
Six themes were developed to describe our collaborative relationship, resulting in the involvement of adolescents in decisions about research priorities; in planning and carrying out the research; through to analysis, dissemination and communication of results. The themes include: (1) Commitment motivated by altruism, personal interests and a common purpose; (2) Inclusiveness and support to reduce social uncertainty and strengthen collaboration; (3) Reduced power differentials while ensuring clarity of roles and tasks; (4) Diversity in representation to expand the perspectives of 'the adolescent voice'; (5) Self-determination-supporting adolescents' involvement in decision-making processes; and (6) Flexible and systematic project management. The themes describe the collaboration, the underlying values and motives, the challenges faced and how they were overcome.
This self-reflective process describing a 4-year collaborative research project resulted in the development of recommendations for involving adolescents in mental health research. The recommendations could potentially contribute to a change of 'research culture' to expand the currently limited involvement of adolescents in research.
Adolescents have contributed as coresearchers through all phases of the research project and as coauthors of this article, including planning, participation in the self- and group-reflective processes, analysis and authoring the article.
尽管青少年有权参与涉及他们健康和生命的决策，但很少有研究报告青少年参与精神健康研究的情况。因此，我们旨在介绍基于青少年参与精神健康研究的经验和反思，描述研究人员和核心研究人员之间的合作关系，包括支撑他们合作的价值观。
采用自传体方法，结合小组反思。这个过程由青少年核心研究人员和项目的首席研究员在两年的时间里共同开发、实施和分析。本文由研究人员和十名核心研究人员共同撰写。
为了描述我们的合作关系，开发了六个主题，从而使青少年参与研究优先事项的决策；参与研究的规划和实施；通过分析、传播和交流研究结果。这些主题包括：（1）出于利他主义、个人兴趣和共同目标的承诺；（2）包容和支持，以减少社会不确定性，加强合作；（3）减少权力差距，同时确保角色和任务明确；（4）多样性的代表性，以扩大“青少年声音”的观点；（5）支持青少年参与决策过程的自决；以及（6）灵活和系统的项目管理。这些主题描述了合作关系、潜在的价值观和动机、面临的挑战以及如何克服这些挑战。
这个描述一个为期四年的合作研究项目的自我反思过程，产生了关于让青少年参与精神健康研究的建议。这些建议可能有助于改变“研究文化”，扩大目前青少年在研究中的有限参与。
青少年作为核心研究人员参与了研究项目的所有阶段，并作为本文的共同作者，包括规划、参与自我和小组反思过程、分析和撰写文章。
