While patient engagement in other disease groups started a decade prior, patient involvement in rheumatology research started in the late 1990’s in Canada and around 2000 in Europe. Partly due to regulatory barriers between patients and pharmaceutical companies at that time, early patient involvement focused strongly on non-pharmacologic research (government, patient organizations, research institutes).
- 1993: Cochrane Musculoskeletal (CM) CM is an international, non-profit organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about health care by preparing, maintaining, and promoting reviews on the effects of health care treatments. They produce reliable, up-to-date reviews of interventions for the prevention, treatment, or rehabilitation of musculoskeletal disorders in the form of systematic reviews. CM is also dedicated to making their systematic reviews available to those interested in treatments for musculoskeletal diseases musculoskeletal.cochrane.org formed a Consumer Group (CMSG), enlisting patient systematic reviewers to join health care professionals and researchers belonging to Cochrane. Canada
- As of today, of all registered review groups that make up Cochrane, the CMSG is one of the largest with over 700 active health care professionals, researchers, and consumer representatives from 26 countries.
CoPI: Consumer reviewer
Context of Research: Systematic literature reviews, dissemination (knowledge translation)