Pre-conference workshop on Monday 8 June.

From patient narratives to insights: applying text analytics to scalable lived experience data for new discoveries

Organised by NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre
with NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration(TRC) Mission.

Description

How do we transform patient narrative data into actionable insights at scale? This interactive two-hour workshop will address how text analytics can be applied to lived experience data at scale. By bringing text analytics scientists together with behavioural scientists, qualitative researchers, people with relevant lived experiences (PERLEs), and other key stakeholders, we will go beyond analysing clinician-reported data to explore how transdisciplinary collaboration can unlock meaning from large amounts of patient-reported text data.

The session will follow the definition of research as a process of investigation leading to new insights that are effectively shared; participants will explore the opportunities, challenges and next steps required for the application of text analytics to patient voices at scale. The collaborative, transdisciplinary session process and outputs will be written up, and an insights report will be shared after the meeting; the aim will be to inform a future transdisciplinary framework for turning qualitative complexity from large-scale patient narratives into health research impact and ultimately benefits for patients and society.

Who should attend?

This transdisciplinary, collaborative session is designed for:

  • Data scientists and NLP (natural language processing) researchers interested in the ethical and linguistic nuances of patient-generated text
  • Behavioural scientists and health psychologists looking to scale qualitative insights through computational methods
  • People with relevant lived experiences (PERLEs), patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) leads, and patient advocates interested in whether and how personal narratives can be captured, stored, and used in research on a large scale
  • Policy makers and healthcare strategists seeking to understand the opportunities, challenges and potential value of patient-centred text analytics for discovery and translational research

Learning objectives

By the end of this interactive workshop, participants will be able to:

  • Spot friction and unlock opportunity: Explore where qualitative patient narratives and quantitative text analytics collide, and where they connect, identifying key tensions as well as exciting opportunities for research and real-world impact, including psychological, ethical, social, and legal dimensions.
  • Rethink data and methods: Gain insight into the challenges and possibilities of capturing and analysing patient voice and lived experience at scale, and how these compare with clinician-reported text.
  • Shape what comes next: Contribute ideas and expertise to a shared process report and emerging framework, helping ensure that insights from the workshop inform future research, practice, and policy.

Workshop organiser

Organiser: Dr Saskia Sanderson, Data Science Lead for the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (TRC) Mission; Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London; and member of the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Informatics Theme.