Research Students & Studentship Opportunities
Current Research Students:
- Catherine Angell
Programme - PhD
Title - Exploring primary school children’s awareness of infant feeding.
Brief - Public health issues have risen rapidly up the political and social agenda in recent years. Infant feeding is an issue which has been identified by a number of research studies as a contributory factor in determining health and wellbeing throughout the life cycle. The conclusions drawn across a range of research areas suggests that breastfeeding leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of major long term health problems for both mothers and babies.
Despite increased education, information and support there is still a significant proportion of women in the UK who choose not to breastfeed at all, or do not breastfeed exclusively for 6 months as recommended by the WHO. The reasons for this appear to be largely social and cultural. There is evidence demonstrating that childhood experiences of breastfeeding influence infant feeding behaviour later in life.
This research aims to explore children’s awareness of infant feeding across the primary school age range. A storytelling activity, using the “draw and write” method, has been developed which will enable children to express their ideas and understanding. It is intended that using this method the research will identify the themes which are significant to them around the subject, as well as areas where they have yet to develop understanding. It will also provide insights into the language, images and level of detail that children of different ages use in this context. This might be considered as important for those developing health education information in the future for primary school children. .
First supervisor - Dr Jane Hunt
Second supervisor - Professor Jo Alexander
- Abigail Barkham
Programme - PhD
Title - An investigation into the contribution of Community Matrons to support the self-management of patients with multiple long-term conditions using a social learning framework.
Brief - Within my clinical role I have been struck by the lack of implementation tools to help in the development of evidence based approach to improve the self-management of care for people living with multiple long-term conditions meeting the community matron criteria. The gaps in evidence lie not within the need for the community matron role, as this is well documented. Evidence gaps are apparent with regard to the methods of care delivery that the community matron adopts to support the self-management of patients with multiple long term conditions. There appears to be little or no evidence available to support how care is implemented for maximum patient benefit. The focus of my research is on evaluating the impact of facilitating a structured participatory social learning environment by community matrons on the self-management of patients with multiple long-term conditions.
First supervisor - Professor Steven Ersser
Second supervisor - Prof Jonathon Parker
- Ruth Day
Programme - PhD nursing
Title - Exploring the use of Focusing (a self-management psychological strategy) with people with persistent low back pain to see if the meaning ascribed to the pain changes.
Brief - There is little published research on Focusing and pain and nothing on its use by individuals with persistent low back pain. I have worked with people with pain for a number of years and was interested to explore the possibilities that Focusing might offer in the management of pain. There is work around the meaning people ascribe to their pain but hardly any that looks to see if the interventions we use alter that meaning. This study will look to see if using Focusing brings any changes in meaning to the individual. It is a mixed methods study, collecting qualitative and quantitative data concurrently. Quantitative measures will see if there are any changes to pain scores of quality of life scores when people use Focusing. This has raised a number of methodological and philosophical questions which will, I hope, feed into the current debate around the use of mixed methods research.
Publications
- May 2008 “The search for methodological congruence: integrating Quality of Life measures in qualitative research” Poster presented at the 5th Nordic Interdisciplinary QMSH conference, University of Stavanger, Norway.
Forthcoming
- July 2008 “Who’s been sleeping in my bed? Searching for methodological congruence” Paper to be presented at the Mixed Methods Conference and Workshops 2008, Cambridge, UK
- August 2008 “Mixed Methods Research in chronic low back pain: integrating quantitative tools in a qualitative study” Poster to be presented at the World Congress on Pain, Glasgow, UK
First supervisor - Dr Eloise Carr
Second supervisor - Prof Les Todres / Roger Baker
- Ehab Georgy
Programme - PhD
Title - Back Pain Management in Primary Care: Development of a Questionnaire for Doctors' and Patients’ Expectations and the Significance of Matched Expectations
Area of Research - Back pain is seen as one of the difficult and unrewarding conditions that doctors have to deal with in primary care (Skelton
et al., 1995). Management of non−specific back pain in general practice has been problematical (Breen et al., 2007).
Among patients presenting with back pain, condition−specific expectations for care are common. Doctors as well seem to
have their own agenda and expectations related to consultation. The way and the extent to which patients and doctors
expectations are met may affect the consultation. Matched patients' and doctors' expectations may lead to better quality of
patient−doctor communication as well as better consultation outcome. Yet, no study attempted to investigate the
congruency of patients' and doctors' expectations nor there is a valid measurement tool. Based on the above mentioned
facts, this study has three main aims; firstly the study aims to explore and identify patients’ and doctors’ condition−specific
expectations related to back pain management in primary care from both the patients' and doctors’ perspectives.
Secondly, it aims to explore the feasibility of using these expectations to develop a structured questionnaire that bears
directly on measuring back pain−specific expectations. Finally the study aims to investigate the congruency between
patients' and doctors’ expectations and its significance for patients and doctors.
- Gillian Glasgow
Programme - DProf
Title - Design, Application, and Evaluation of a Chemistry Wiki Tool used on Chemistry-Anxious First-Year Undergraduates at a UK University.
Brief - My research idea emanated from educational practice during the time I was teaching and running a Nutrition and Biochemistry unit delivered to 3 health sciences programmes. I had observed a number of students disclosing feelings of worry and anxiety about the prospect of having no chemistry background and who were requiring further help and support with their understanding of basic chemistry. Students who have previously found difficulty with the learning of chemistry or who have little or no formal chemistry qualifications could find the transition into science and higher education quite intimidating and daunting. Furthermore, anxiety challenges student concentration and attention (Eysenck et al 2007), consequently affecting student performance (Aris and Siow 2007). The focus of my research seeks to address this area of concern by supporting first-year undergraduate chemistry-anxious students by the design and application of an online chemistry wiki tool. It is envisaged that chemistry anxiety will be reduced from the learning of basic chemistry within an interactive and collaborative setting that the wiki platform potentially has to offer. An evaluation of wiki implementation and its effectiveness in supporting chemistry-anxious students will be carried out using a mixed methods approach within a professionalising action research framework. Research findings will seek to build and add to the vast body of e-learning knowledge and contribute to the ongoing improvement of health sciences teaching in higher education. Furthermore, findings will enable the educational community to learn more about the nature of wiki use and its implementation to the learning and teaching of chemistry.
First supervisor - Dr Sarah Hean
Second supervisor - Dr Carol Bond / Dr Maggie Hutchings
- Judith Gleeson
Programme - PhD
Title - What are the impacts of the 'Creating A Patient-Led NHS' White Paper (Department of Health 2005) on the provision of public health nursing services in England?
Area of Research - The conceptual framework for this study is social policy theory, including the theoretical anlysis of policy-making, implementation and evaluation. By evaluating the impact of one specific White Paper on the provision of public health nursing services in England, I will be drawing on this and generating new theory through a grounded theory approach. The investigation of the impact of policy specifically on public health nursing practice is a new area of research activity. The studies which have been carried out have been largely North American (Gebbie at al 2000, Greipp, 2002). The focus in such studies has been mainly about how nurses can become more active in policy-making. Traditionally, policy-makers and public health managers and practitioners have often worked in two separate spheres. Walt (1994) identified the need to bring together the two worlds of academic policy analysis and public health nursing practice. This is something I hope to achieve in my work. As with the 'theory-practice gap' which is often alluded to in nursing, so one can identify a potential 'policy-practice gap'. There can be a divergance from the original policy which occurs during the implementation process. Final outcomes in practice terms may be very differnt from those intended by policy-makers. This project will collect data from public health nurses and managers around their experiences of the implementation of the White Paper and, following analysis, generate theory which enhances our understanding of the links between policy and practice.
First supervisor - Dr Ann Hemingway
Second supervisor - Dr Jerry Warr
