Category / Nursing & Midwifery

New BU publication on academic writing

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Orlanda Harvey in the Department of Social Sciences & Social Work, Dr. Pramod Regmi in the Department of Nursing Science and FHSS Visiting Faculty Jillian Ireland, Professional Midwifery Advocate in Poole Maternity Hospital (UHD/University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust) whose paper ‘Co-authors, colleagues, and contributors: Complexities in collaboration and sharing lessons on academic writing‘ was published today.[1] 

The paper argues that academic writing, especially in the health field, is usually an interdisciplinary team effort. It highlights some of the trials, tribulations, and benefits of working with co-authors. This includes collaborations and co-authorship between academics from different disciplines, academics of different level of careers, and authors from countries of varying economies i.e., high-income countries (HICs) and from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper also provides advice in the form of several useful tips to lead authors and co-authors to support collaborative working.  Our other co-authors are: Aney Rijal, postgraduate student and Executive Editor of the journal Health Prospect based in Nepal, and Alexander van Teijlingen postgraduate student in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

Reference:

  1. Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, A., Regmi, P.R., Ireland, J., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2022) Co-authors, colleagues, and contributors: Complexities in collaboration and sharing lessons on academic writing Health Prospect 21(1):1-3.

Last BU paper of 2021

international, open access, Publishing, writing

The scientific journal Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published its fourth and final issue of 2021 on December 31.  This issue included our systematic review ‘Epidemiologic characteristics, clinical management and Public Health Implications of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Pregnancy: A Systematic Review and meta-analysis’.  This review covered the published literature on the epidemiology, clinical management and public health prevention aspects of pregnancy and childbirth and coronavirus (COVID-19) up until December 2020.  We worked hard and fast to submit the paper as soon as possible after the end of 2020 to be able to publish up-to-date findings.  We managed this and submitted the paper on March 5th, the peer-review took some months and so did the making of the revisions.  As a result we resubmitted the manuscript of 29 September and we got the acceptance email within a week.  We made it into the next issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology which published exactly one year after the data collection period had ended for our systematic review.

There are two lessons here, first even when submitting to an online journal one will experience a delay in publishing.  Secondly, the 36 papers we had appraised and included were published in 2020, meaning these scientific  papers were submitted in mid-2020 at the latest in order to make it through the peer-review process, get accepted and formatted for online publication.

In the resubmitted version we had to add as a weakness of this review that: “It is worth noting that this extensive systematic review only cover papers published in 2020, and hence studies conducted in or before 2020. This was before the emergence of variants of COVID-19, especially the delta and omicron variants.”

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health).

Another BU Impact Case Study

innovation, NHS, open access, writing

In 2018 BU researchers Dr. Jenny Hall and Prof. Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinal Health (CMMPH) published a paper on disabled women and maternity care.  This scientific paper was co-authored with Ms. Jillian Ireland, Professional Midwifery Advocate in University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust and BU Visiting Faculty, and Dr. Bethan Collins at the University of Liverpool (and former BU staff member).  Their paper ‘Dignity and respect during pregnancy and childbirth: a survey of the experience of disabled women’ appeared in the Open Access journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth and was commissioned by the charity Birthrights.   The study shows that disabled women are generally not receiving the individualised care and support they that they need to make choices about their maternity care.   At the time of publication this BU paper was picked up by various media, including in South Africa.

The study resulted in change in St Mary’s Maternity Hospital in Poole (as part of maternity care provision by University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust).  One of the innovations at Poole Maternity Hospital was  supporting a woman to give birth in hospital with her assistance dog by her side to help ease her anxiety.

This story was picked up by several newspapers including the local Bournemouth Echo under the heading ‘Dog to accompany Poole dog handler as she gives birth‘, and by several national newspapers last week when the The Guardian published ‘UK woman has baby in hospital with ‘birth dog’ by her side‘, The Times printed ‘Baby safely delivered, with a little help from woman’s best friend‘, whilst the online news website Big World Tale used the headline: ‘Woman, 24, gives birth in hospital with a DOG as ‘medical aid”.

 

Universities are always on the look out for impact generated by its research.  This seems a clear example of joint research between BU and University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust staff resulting in innovations in practice.

 

Congratulations to all involved!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

New BU paper on digital tools for diabetes

innovation, international, open access, Publishing, Student Engagement, student research, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to BU PhD student Nurudeen Adesina on the publication of his systematic review.  Nurudeen together with Huseyin Dogan in the Department of Computing & Informatics, Sue Green in the Nursing for Long-term Health Centre, and Fotini Tsofliou in Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) appeared in print just before Christmas with their paper ‘Effectiveness and Usability of Digital Tools to Support Dietary Self-Management of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review‘ [1].

This new paper highlights that advice on dietary intake is an essential first line intervention for the management of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Digital tools such as web-based and smartphone apps have been suggested to provide a novel way of providing information on diet for optimal glucose regulation in women with GDM. This systematic review explored the effectiveness and usability of digital tools designed to support dietary self-management of GDM. A systematic search of Medline, Embase,
Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Library, and Scopus using key search terms identified 1476 papers reporting research studies, of which 16 met the specified inclusion criteria. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the ErasmusAGE Quality Score or the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) version 2018. The findings show that the adoption of digital tools may be an effective approach to support self-management relating to healthy diet, health behaviour, and adherence to therapy in women with GDM as a usable intervention. However, the four authors argue that there is a lack of evidence concerning the effectiveness of tools to support the dietary management of GDM. Consideration for ethnic specific dietary advice and evidence-based frameworks in the development of effective digital tools for dietary management of GDM should be considered as these aspects have been limited in the studies reviewed.

Reference:

Adesina, N.; Dogan, H.; Green, S.; Tsofliou, F. Effectiveness and Usability of Digital Tools to Support Dietary Self-Management of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review. Nutrients 2022, 14, 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14010010

Research papers: A game of Happy Families

Delicious links, international, open accecss, Publishing, Student Engagement, writing

Recently I completed a game of Happy Families, to be more precise I added a paper with my fourth family member to a ‘collection’.  I got the idea from Prof. Jonathan Parker  and Prof. Sara Ashencaen Crabtree (both based in the Department of Social Sciences & Social Work) who published a paper with their children a few years ago [1].  When Jonathan told me about this achievement I had already published two dozen of scientific and practitioners’ papers with my partner  Jilly Ireland, Professional Midwifery Advocate in University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust and FHSS Visiting Faculty (for example 2-5).

Two years ago, Dr. Preeti Mahato (in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health) and I published a paper with my middle son about ‘Vaping and e-cigarettes: A public health warning or a health promotion tool?’ [6].  The following year, Prof. Hamid Bouchachia (Faculty of Science & Technology) and I co-authored a paper with my oldest son on AI and health in Nepal [7], followed by a paper this year on academic publishing with FHSS’s Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhikari (Department of Social Sciences & Social Work , Dr. Nirmal Aryal (CMMPH) and Dr. Pramod Regmi (Department of Nursing Sciences  [8].  And to complete the four family members in the Happy Families set, I published a paper late last month with my daughter under the title ‘ Understanding health education, health promotion and public health’ [9].

 

 

 

References:

  1. Parker, J., Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Crabtree Parker, M. and Crabtree Parker, I., 2019. ‘Behaving like a Jakun!’ A case study of conflict, ‘othering’ and indigenous knowledge in the Orang Asli of Tasik Chini. Journal of Sociology and Development, 3 (1): 23-45.
  2. Ireland, J., Bryers, H., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Farmer, J., Harris, F., Tucker, J., Kiger, A., Caldow, J. (2007) Competencies and Skills for Remote & Rural Maternity Care: A Review of the Literature, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 58(2): 105-115.
  3. van Teijlingen E., Simkhada, P., Ireland, J. (2010) Lessons learnt from undertaking maternity-care research in developing countries. Evidence-based Midwifery 8(1): 12-6.
  4. Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E, Kemp J. (2015) Twinning in Nepal: the Royal College of Midwives UK and the Midwifery Society of Nepal working in partnership, Journal of Asian Midwives 2 (1): 26-33. http://ecommons.aku.edu/jam/vol2/iss1/5/
  5. Ireland, J., Khashu, M., Cescutti-Butler, L., van Teijlingen, E, Hewitt-Taylor, J. (2016) Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of literature, Journal of Neonatal Nursing 22(4): 171–176.
  6. van Teijlingen, E., Mahato, P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, C., Asim, M., & Sathian, B. (2019). Vaping and e-cigarettes: A public health warning or a health promotion tool? Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 9(4), 792-794. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v9i4.26960
  7. van Teijlingen, A., Tuttle, T., Bouchachia, H., Sathian, B., & van Teijlingen, E. (2020). Artificial Intelligence and Health in Nepal. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 10(3), 915–918. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v10i3.31649
  8. van Teijlingen, E.R., Dhakal Adhikari, S., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, A., Aryal, N., Panday, S. (2021). Publishing, identifiers & metrics: Playing the numbers game. Health Prospect, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v20i1.37391
  9. van Teijlingen, K., Devkota, B., Douglas, F., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) Understanding health education, health promotion and public health, Journal of Health Promotion 9(1):1-7.  https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/jhp/article/view/40957

Peer-reviewing ten years on

Guidance, international, Publishing, writing

The process of peer review is widely recognised as the key element of quality control in academic publishing and the scientific community more generally.  Peer review is the critical appraisal of one’s work by fellow scholars, who read and comment on your manuscript and offered a verdict on its quality, rigour, originality, style, completeness, etc. etc.

Peer reviewers are typically experts in your field, if not your topic, or who have expertise in the methods you applied or the population or are you studied.  They are also academics often with busy day jobs, who act as unpaid peer reviewers, and as journal editors for that matter.  Peer reviewers are with full-time jobs who give up their free time to review for academic journals.  A recent article by Aczel and colleagues (2021) reported that reviewers across the globe spent over 100 million hours on peer reviewing for free in 2020, the estimated value of this equated to nearly £300 million in the UK alone.  This quantifies in some of my feelings I wrote about a decade ago now in a BU Research Blog with the title ‘Peer review and bust academics’.

However, with the ever-growing number of health and social science journals the requests for reviewing seem to grow relentlessly.  This month alone (November 2021) I received twenty or 21 requests to review.  I have reviewed three manuscripts for Birth, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, and The Journal of International Development, but I had to reject or ignore many more (see Table 1).  I usually do my reviews over the weekend.  One weekend this month I could not review because I had to prepare materials for the external auditor who came to visit Bournemouth University for a project recently completed, and this weekend I could not find the time because I’m proof-reading two PhD chapters (and writing this blog).

I leave you with some food for thought: academics spent time applying for research funding, then apply for the ethical approval, do the research, we write up the findings, and write blogs about the process!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

 

Reference:

Aczel, B., Szaszi, B., Holcombe, A.O. (2021) A billion-dollar donation: estimating the cost of researchers’ time spent on peer review. Res Integr Peer Rev 6, 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-021-00118-2.

Wessex REACH Initiative – Peer support grant

Funding opportunities, NHS

The Wessex REACH Initiative was formally launched in the summer and their first newsletter can be found here.

Wessex REACH are offering a small amount of funding to groups of researchers who wish to create a space for thinking, connecting and problem solving with their peers.  By coming together in face-to-face peer group meetings, research ideas and local problems can be discussed, common challenges and possible solutions can be shared and learn from one another. Whether you want to meet for afternoon tea away from the office a few times a year or fund a grant writing away day or any other creative solution that suits your group, they are interested in receiving your applications.

Who is eligible?
Anyone currently working in healthcare, social care or in healthcare-related research in Wessex.

How much is available?
Each group can apply for up to £500 to be used over a 1 year period.  They are aiming to fund up to 4 groups in the first round.  All applications will be reviewed by the Wessex REACH Steering Group and successful applicants notified early in 2022.

How to apply?
Send a short summary (up to 500 words) to info@wessexreach.org.uk by 10 December 2021.  This summary should include the following information, which will be used in the shortlisting process:

  • Contact details for your group or an expression of interest in being part of a group in your area
  • Your reasons for applying and how the award will help to build research capacity in your group
  • Your planned event(s)/activity
  • What your group is hoping to achieve and how it aligns with building research capacity in the Wessex region
  • What facilitation support, if any, you would like from the Wessex REACH Exec Committee (https://www.wessexreach.org.uk/meet-the-team  )
  • Requested total budget

Questions
If you would like to discuss your eligibility or plans prior to applying please contact Beth Stuart (bls1@soton.ac.uk)

This Sunday is a midwifery day

international, NHS

Today Sunday 21st November was a midwifery dominated day today.  This lunchtime a interdisciplinary team from CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health) at BU and the University of Exeter submitted a research proposal to the ICM (International Confederation of Midwives) on Midwife-Led Birthing Centres in Low- and Middle-Income  Countries.   As a personal observation: whoever thought that setting the submission deadline for a Sunday was a good idea has no respect for researchers’ work-life balance!

This afternoon many of us attended the  March with Midwives vigils which were held nationwide in the UK to highlight issues with midwifery staffing and working conditions.  The March with Midwives vigil took place in 50 towns and cities, as a vigil to make the general public and politicians aware about the maternity crisis.  In Poole Park it attracted over fifty people.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH

Free training sessions for dementia researchers

conferences, international, Knowledge Exchange, Training

Bournemouth University is involved in a wider collaboration which organises the Advanced Dementia Research Conference (ADRC 2021).  The conference is delivered online today and tomorrow (19th-20th November).  ADRC 2021 is led by Dr. Brijesh Sathian, BU Visiting Faculty, based in the Geriatric Medicine Department, Rumailah Hospital, in Doha, Qatar.  Saturday morning Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen will be delivering a session on qualitative research, preceded by a session on mixed-methods research from Prof. Padam Simkhada, also BU Visiting Faculty, from the University of Huddersfield.

The programme shown is for Day 2 tomorrow.   All sessions today and tomorrow are free to attend!  You can register here! Please, note that advertised times a Qatar times which three hours ahead of the UK at the moment.  

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)

 

Bournemouth research cited in The Sunday Times

international, Publishing, writing

Today Bournemouth University’s research on Nepali migrant workers and kidney problems was cited in The Sunday Times. In the preparation for the Qatar 2022 men’s football world cup The Sunday Times published an article under the title ‘Dying for the World Cup‘.

Dr. Pramod Regmi and Dr. Nirmal Aryal were awarded funding from GCRF (The Global Challenges Research Fund) and Bournemouth University’s QR fund.  This work resulted in an editorial highlighting that low-skilled migrant workers in the Middle Wast and Malaysia are at a disproportionately higher risk of kidney problems. The working conditions are often Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult (referred at as the 3Ds) include physically demanding work, exposure to a hot environment, dehydration, chemical exposures, excessive use of pain killers, and lifestyle factors (such as restricted water intake and a high intake of alcohol/sugary drinks) which may precipitate them to acute kidney injuries and subsequent chronic kidney disease [1].  And recently, a national survey of nephrologists (kidney specialists) on their perceptions of the size of the problem of kidney health in Nepali migrant workers [2].

 

 

References:

  1. Aryal, N., Regmi, P.R., Sedhain, A., KC, R.K., Martinez Faller, E., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2021). Kidney health risk of migrant workers: An issue we can no longer overlook. Health Prospect 21(1): 15-17.
  2. Aryal, N., Sedhain, A., Regmi, P., KC, R. K., van Teijlingen, E. (2021). Risk of kidney health among returnee Nepali migrant workers: A survey of nephrologists. Asian Journal of Medical Sciences 12(12), 126–132.

 

Not going in!

international, Publishing, writing

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the online workshop ‘500 Years of Childbirth’ together with by CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health) colleges Dr. Juliet Wood and Dr. Laura Iannuzzi. The session ‘500 Years of Childbirth’ was part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities which runs 11–20 November 2021.  History has always been a passion of me, and the presenters, Julia Martins and Carly Lokrheim, linked early modern history with childbirth in the 21st century. 

This wonderful session reminded me of my draft chapter I wrote for my PhD thesis three decades ago.  My thesis A social or medical model of childbirth? : comparing the arguments in Grampian (Scotland) and the Netherlands at the University of Aberdeen was supervised by Dr. Peter McCaffery.  Peter wisely said to me: “You really needed to write this chapter to make sense of the history of midwifery in your head, but it does not really fit the thesis.”  He added: “You have too many words already.  You know that it is not going in?” The material of this history chapter was not lost as I used loads of text from it it in the introduction section for a textbook [1].  The section ‘History of Midwifery: Introduction’ became part of our edited volume Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives (Nova Science Publishers, Inc., Huntington, New York, USA) [2].

It is a message I occasionally repeat to my own PhD students.  Under the circumstances I may fing myself saying things like “This is something you had to get of your chest, or you had to write it to make sense of it, but as it stands do you think it fits your argument?”  Or more subtly in a supervision meeting, tell us: “What does this section add to your overall story in the thesis?”

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E. (2004) History of Midwifery: Introduction, In: van Teijlingen, E. Lowis, G., et al. (eds.), Midwifery & the Medicalization of Childbirth, NY: Nova Sci., pages: 43-52.
  2. van Teijlingen , E., Lowis, G., McCaffery, P. & Porter, M. (eds.) (2004) Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives, New York: Nova Science. [Paperback ISBN: 1-59454-0314].

NIHR Bulletin

Funding opportunities, NHS, writing

RDS NEWS

New RDS event: Virtual Grant Development & Writing Workshop
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve just opened registration for the new Virtual Grant Development & Writing Workshop which will take place on the 23rd and 24th November 2021.

This is a 2-day workshop that we’re hosting in partnership with the RDS North East and North Cumbria. The 2-day workshop will provide a great opportunity to help researchers to make progress in developing their NIHR research proposal into a competitive application. Find out more.

NIHR News

NIHR welcomes Government investment in health R&D

eBulletins and Newsletters

NIHR News and Research: October 2021

NHS England and NHS Improvement: In Touch

PenARC Matters – October 2021

Events

NIHR Research for Social Care (RfSC) Call Seminar: 25th November 2021, 1.30pm – 3.00pm

An event specifically for social care researchers, practitioners and users to introduce the latest call from the NIHR’s RfSC programme. Speakers include the RfSC Programme Team, the RfSC committee chair, and others including Dr Mark Wilberforce (a successful candidate), Autistica, and a public involvement expert. The remit of the call, requirements and applications processes will be covered. Find out more

Funding Opportunities

Public Health Research (PHR) Programme

21/568 Suicide prevention in high risk groups
21/569 Effectiveness of interventions aimed at preventing domestic abuse
21/570 What are the health and health inequality impacts of being outdoors for children and young people?
21/571 Digital health inclusion and inequalities
21/572 Increasing uptake of vaccinations in populations where there is low uptake

 

Your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) should you need help with your application. We advise on all aspects of developing an application and can review application drafts as well as put them to a mock funding panel (run by RDS South West) known as Project Review Committee, which is a fantastic opportunity for researchers to obtain a critical review of a proposed grant application before this is sent to a funding body.

Contact us as early as possible to benefit fully from the advice

Feel free to call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.