The PRIME project: developing a patient evidence-base.

Background: The concept of evidence has become firmly rooted in health care, with most importance placed on the outcome of research in clinical and economic spheres. Much less emphasis is placed on the patient's contribution to evidence which remains relatively vague, of low status and often difficult to integrate with other forms of knowledge.

Aim: This article proposes a concept of patient-based evidence, to complement clinical and economic forms of evidence, and demonstrates one way in which it has been operationalized. The PRIME project developed a patient evidence-base to capture the lived experience of individuals with myalgic encephalitis (ME) or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Design: Interviews were performed with 40 individuals with ME/CFS who varied in a range of demographic characteristics, including age, gender, and how severely affected individuals were.

Results: PRIME has developed a patient evidence-base which has an extensive array of experiences data to provide researchers, clinicians and others with an in-depth insight into the lived experience of ME/CFS that can be used and analysed. Data are grouped into a wide range of themes, which can be downloaded and used in a variety of ways as a source of evidence to enable understanding of the lived experience of ME/CFS and so contribute to the development of a more patient-focused research agenda in ME/CFS.

Conclusions: While patient-based evidence used in the PRIME Project provides a useful start, further work is required to develop this area conceptually and methodologically, particularly in relation to how patient-based evidence can be considered alongside clinical and economic evidence.