Talking the Walk (Along): Lessons Learned From Engaging With Children With Cerebral Palsy and Their Parents for Investigating Lived Experiences of Falls

Walker, RL ORCID: 0000-0001-6271-2271, O'Brien, TD ORCID: 0000-0003-2968-5173, Barton, GJ, Carter, B ORCID: 0000-0001-5226-9878, Wright, DM and Foster, RJ ORCID: 0000-0003-2410-9839 (2025) Talking the Walk (Along): Lessons Learned From Engaging With Children With Cerebral Palsy and Their Parents for Investigating Lived Experiences of Falls. Health Expectations, 28 (6). ISSN 1369-6513

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Abstract

Background: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) regularly fall over, but causes of day‐to‐day falls are not well understood.
Further insight may be revealed by engaging with children with CP and their families during patient and public involvement
and engagement (PPIE) and adopting a participatory, child‐centred perspective. PPIE involves designing, conducting and
disseminating research with the public and has been used in health research with children, but has not been utilised to inform
research of falls with children with CP.
Objective: This paper aims to critically discuss experiences of PPIE with children with CP and their parents, who engaged with
a researcher to inform a novel adaptation of the walk‐along interview method for investigating how real‐world falls occur.
Methods of Engagement: Eight children with CP (8–17 years) and six parents engaged as PPIE participants in consultations
and activities with the researcher about a walk‐along interview method, specifically tailored to children with CP.
Outcomes of Engagement: PPIE participants identified places to walk (e.g., parks), how to conduct interviews (e.g., ‘stop and
talk’) and areas of questioning, that contributed to a walk‐along interview protocol. These outcomes demonstrate that PPIE
generated unique insights for a protocol specific to children with CP.
Discussion: Strength was brought to PPIE through developing good relationships and using creative activities. Challenges
during PPIE included contrasting views and availability, which were managed through adaptation, communication and
consensus.
Conclusions: This study supports and expands previous PPIE and child‐centred work, reinforcing that children and parents
can positively help create impactful research designs, by developing and refining a method to collect real‐world information
about falls, specifically tailored for children with CP. We offer critical reflections on conducting PPIE, showing that engaging in
PPIE to refine a protocol can offer unique insight into the worlds of children with CP and strengthen the design of future
studies.
Patient or Public Contribution: Children with CP and their parents were consulted using PPIE to provide their views about a
novel walk‐along interview method tailored for children with CP. This paper focuses on lessons learned from this PPIE, which
is part of a wider pre‐defined PhD project investigating causes of falls in children with CP. Within the wider project PPIE is an
ongoing process beyond the scope of this paper.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1110 Nursing; 1117 Public Health and Health Services; 1701 Psychology; Public Health; 4203 Health services and systems; 4206 Public health
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC1200 Sports Medicine R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
Divisions:	Sport and Exercise Sciences
Publisher:	Wiley
Date of acceptance:	4 August 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	17 November 2025
Date Deposited:	17 Nov 2025 13:47
Last Modified:	17 Nov 2025 14:00
DOI or ID number:	10.1111/hex.70497
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27578

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