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Faculty of Health Sciences

Public & Patient Engagement

Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool

The Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PPEET) is a series of three questionnaires to evaluate public and patient engagement. The tool was developed primarily for use within health system organizations but has also been used to evaluate engagement within other contexts (e.g., health research).

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The PPEET is the product of a Canadian collaboration of researchers and public and patient engagement (PPE) practitioners led by McMaster University. In 2011, the PPE Research-Practice Collaborative was formed with the aim of developing a common evaluation tool that could be used in a variety of health system organizations across Canada to collectively contribute to improvements in the quality of PPE practice across the country.

The PPEET was revised in 2018 based on the results of a comprehensive implementation study. Seven health system organizations participated in the study, implementing the PPEET and providing feedback on its usefulness from the perspective of those implementing the tool and those completing the tool. The revised tool (Version 2.0) was released in August 2018.

The PPEET is currently available for download from our website in English and French. It is also available in Dutch, German, Italian and Norwegian.

Visit the Springer Link website to find information about the translation process. If you are interested in using the German or Italian versions of the PPEET, please contact us.

If you are interested in translating the PPEET into additional languages, please contact the Public and Patient Engagement Collaborative.

You may wish to supplement the PPEET questions with additional questions that reflect the unique features of your organization. However, we discourage the removal or complete re-wording of questions as this limits comparability between and within organizations if the questionnaires are being used repeatedly to assess changes over time.

The questionnaires can be administered via paper copies or programmed into an electronic survey platform such as SurveyMonkey, LimeSurvey or Google Forms. If you are implementing the questionnaires electronically, consider the following:

  • When using electronic tools, respondents prefer having an option to go back to previous answers to review responses, change a response or add more information to a response. This back button should be clearly displayed as part of the platform
  • Ensure that the platform you select is appropriate for all users and abilities or offer accommodations as necessary. The platform should also be mobile-friendly.

Regardless of the platform used to administer the survey, respondents prefer to have the questions numbered so they can refer to them when making comments, etc., and they would like to know approximately how long the survey will take to complete before they begin.

The PPEET consists of the following questionnaires:

Participant Questionnaire

The purpose of the participant questionnaire is to obtain participants’ assessments of the key features of the PPE initiative. Two versions of this questionnaire are available: one to evaluate one-time engagements and one to evaluate ongoing/long-term engagements.

Project Questionnaire

The purpose of the project questionnaire is to review and assess the planning, execution, and impact of the engagement component. The tool includes three different modules, meant to be completed for each organization: planning the engagement component (Module A), assessing the engagement component of your project (Module B), and assessing the impact of the engagement component (Module C).

Organization Questionnaire

The purpose of the organization questionnaire is to assess how engagement, as an organizational activity and responsibility, is being carried out within organizations.

To access the Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool, please complete the request form below:

Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool Request Form