This thesis describes how patients can be involved in research without overburdening them and without excluding vulnerable patient groups. We demonstrate how the subjective individual experiences of each separate patient can be developed into shared objective knowledge, also known as the patients' perspective. We show how patients can be involved in order to foster such a process and to explore the patients' perspectives, which can be seen as complementary to the professionals' perspectives.

Karen Schipper is health psychologist and researcher. She has the same renal disease as her mother and grandmother suffered. She combined her scientific knowledge and background with her experiential knowledge in order to write this thesis.