
Patient involvement
What is meant by the patient involvement?
Patient involvement means that you as a patient and citizen can play a part in research projects by bringing your interests and opinions to research projects and thereby impacting research.
Why are patients involved in the general practice research networks?
Through the involvement and participation of patients and citizens, research projects and general practices should be oriented toward the needs and interests of the patients. This increases the relevance of research projects.
Also, it ensures that important findings from GP reach the general population.
How are patients involved?
As a patient, you can participate in research in different ways:
- As a consultant, you can, for example, give helpful advice on which research topics are interesting from the patient’s point of view or contribute to the development of questionnaires, interview guidelines, and study information.
- As a co-researcher, you can help to approach other patients for participation in another study, collect data or interpret results.
- As a co-author, you can, for example, help to formulate study results in an understandable way for the general population and help to disseminate them via suitable communication channels
The individual research practice networks, of the DESAM-ForNet initiative, involve patients in their research in their practice in different ways. You can find out about the possibilities in each case by contacting the network in your region.
An overview of the GP research practice networks and the contact person for the patient participation can be found here:
Contact persons for participation:
This map shows the GP practice networks associated with the DESAM-ForNet initiative.

BayFoNet
Bavarian research network for general practice
FoPraNet-BW
Research Practice Network Baden-Württemberg
HAFO.NRW (NRW-GPRN)
North-Rhine Westphalian General Practice Research Network (HAFO.NRW)
RaPHaeL
Research Practices Halle-Leipzig
RESPoNsE
Research Practice Network East
SaxoForN
Practice-Based Research Networks Dresden/Frankfurt am Main
★ Site of a network consortium leader
● Further general practice network sites
⊙ Non-general practice network sites
■ Associated partners in the DESAM-ForNet Initiative
▲ Universities with a general practice research institute
Here you can find the contact persons for the participation and patient involvement in your region.

BayFoNet – Bavarian Practice Based Research Network
Christian Kretzschmann
Contact: Kretzschma_C@ukw.de
Homepage: https://bayfonet.de/en/

FoPraNet-BW – Forschungspraxennetz Baden-Württemberg
Andreas Polanc
Contact: andreas.polanc@med.uni-tuebingen.de
Homepage: https://www.forschungspraxennetz-bw.de

HAFO.NRW – Hausärztliches Forschungspraxennetz NRW
Frau Susanne Kersten
Kontakt: susanne.kersten@uni-wh.de
Homepage: www.hafo.nrw

RaPHaeL – Research Practice Network Halle-Leipzig
Herr Dr. Alexander Bauer
Kontakt: alexander.bauer@medizin.uni-halle.de
Homepage: https://www.medizin.uni-halle.de/einrichtungen/institute/allgemeinmedizin/forschungspraxennetzwerk-raphael

RESPoNsE – Forschungspraxennetz Berlin/Brandenburg/Thüringen
Frau Doreen Kuschick
Kontakt: Doreen.kuschick@charite.de
Homepage: https://forschungspraxennetz.charite.de

SaxoForN – Forschungspraxennetz Allgemeinmedizin Dresden/Frankfurt am Main
Frau Dr. Jennifer Engler
Kontakt: engler@allgemeinmedizin.uni-frankfurt.de
Homepage: https://www.saxoforn.net
If you have any questions, please contact the coordination office at any time!
We will support you in finding a contact person from the research practice networks to participate in the research and will be happy to advise you in detail.

Koordinierungsstelle der Initiative DESAM-ForNet
Frau Dr. Leonor Heinz
Kontakt: koordinierung@desam-fornet.de
Homepage: www.desam-fornet.de