Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) refers to activities where members of the public or patients are actively involved in contributing to research or healthcare service improvements as advisers or co-researchers, rather than taking part in research as a participant.1 PPI has been relatively absent from abortion research but is increasingly a requirement of academic journals and research funders.2 Anecdotally, researchers have expressed difficulty in engaging a patient population who value confidentiality and sometimes do not want to re-engage with services.
Furthermore, there has been no consensus on the best term to collectively refer to people who have had an abortion in research outputs and PPI materials. Understanding preferences around the terminology used could advance efforts to involve patients and the public in abortion-related PPI activities. Many journals require the use of gender-neutral language in research outputs.3 Researchers have used the terms ‘clients’, ‘service-users’, ‘patients’ and…