Category / Psychology

ADRC presented latest results at two conferences in Germany

Jan Wiener, Ramona Grzeschik and Chris Hilton represented the Ageing & Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) at the 40th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) 27–31 August 2017 in Berlin and the 20th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP) 3-6 September 2017 in Potsdam.

The ECVP is an annual meeting that brings together researchers from Psychology, Neurosciences, Optics, Computational Sciences and more. Besides vision, other modalities are represented as well as their interaction (multisensory perception). The conference of the ESCoP is being held once every two years. The society’s mission is “the furtherance of scientific enquiry within the field of Cognitive Psychology and related subjects, particularly with respect to collaboration and exchange of information between researchers in different European countries”.

Ramona represented the ADRC at both conferences with her ESRC-funded project on Dementia-friendly environments. In particular, she presented a poster with the latest results of her wayfinding experiment where she investigated the route learning abilities and eye movements of young and old participants.

At the ESCoP conference, Jan gave a talk on “What can eye-tracking tell us about the cognitive mechanisms underlying successful navigation?” where he introduced a couple of experiments that investigated eye movements during route and place learning in Virtual Environments.

Chris presented his results at the ESCoP as well. His poster titled “An exploration into the effects of ageing on general control of attention during route learning in a complex environment.” escribed his experiment using a natural looking virtual environment called “Virtual Tübingen”. He investigated attentional engagement during a route learning task in young and old participants.

Congratulations to Dr. Jane Fry & colleagues

international, open access, Publishing, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, writing

Congratulations to Jane Fry, Janet Scammell and Sue Barker  in the Faculty of Health & Social Science on the publication of their latest paper ‘ Drowning in Muddied Waters or Swimming Downstream?: A Critical Analysis of Literature Reviewing in a Phenomenological Study through an Exploration of the Lifeworld, Reflexivity and Role of the Researcher’.

This innivative paper proceeds from examining the debate regarding the question of whether a systematic literature review should be undertaken within a qualitative research study to focusing specifically on the role of a literature review in a phenomenological study. Along with pointing to the pertinence of orienting to, articulating and delineating the phenomenon within a review of the literature, the paper presents an appropriate approach for this purpose. How a review of the existing literature should locate the focal phenomenon within a given context is illustrated by excerpts from the literature review within a descriptive phenomenological study. This article was recently published in the Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology.  Click here for freely available copy online.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

What happens when things go wrong in medicine?

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences

1-day BU conference/workshop examining what happens when things go wrong in surgery, 8th September 2017

Every day we make mistakes; we pick up the wrong set of keys from the kitchen drawer, pick up the wrong identical suitcase from the airport carousel, or, in the case of the Oscars, a near identical envelope is given to Warren Beatty who then announces the wrong Best Film winner.

What happens when things go wrong in surgery where the consequences can be much more serious?  While attention, quite rightly, focuses on patient need when things go wrong, the aim of this event is to examine how medical professionals can be better supported and trained to cope with these adverse events.

Eminent speakers from around the UK will present the latest research in the area, share insights from their surgical careers and personal experiences and will consider:-

Impact – The personal impact when complications and errors arise in surgery

Resilience – Dealing with stress and maintaining wellbeing

Restoration – what can be done when things go wrong?

While the focus is on surgeons, it is clear that those in other medical professions (e.g. nurses, midwives, GPs) face similar issues in the workplace. Anyone with an interest in the topic is welcome to attend (attendance is free for BU staff).   For further details and to register for the conference please visit www.surgeonwellbeing.co.uk or contact Professor Siné McDougall (smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk; ext. 61722).

BU’s PhD student Juan Camilo Avendaño Diaz and Dr. Xun He presented their research at the 7th Joint Action Meeting.

conferences

On July 22-26, Dr. Xun He and Juan Camilo Avendaño Diaz (PhD student) attended the 7th bi-annual Joint Action Meeting (JAM), held at Queen Mary University of London. This meeting brought together researchers from many different fields (psychologists, philosophers, physicists, musicians, engineers and neuroscientists, just to name a few), interested in studying people’s ability to act together (they had a full day covering human-robot interaction as well!).

Dr. Xun He gave a talk titled “A dual-EEG study of the shared attention effect in dyads: Sensory processing or top-down control?”, examining the information processing in the brain when people co-attend to the same spatial locations. Juan Camilo presented the poster “Visual attention in dyads: The role of group membership”, suggesting that co-attending with members of the same vs. different social group could have distinct effects on visual attention.

Attending JAM 2017 was a great opportunity to meet some key figures in the field, and to hear and discuss about the research that is been performed worldwide, including the research carried out at BU.

If you would like to learn more about our research, please do not hesitate to contact me at javendanodiaz@bournemouth.ac.uk

Helping surgeons when things go wrong

conferences

1-day BU conference examining the effect of adverse events on surgeons, 8th September 2017

A group of BU researchers are working in partnership with Royal Bournemouth Hospital to carry out research examining the consequences of complications and errors on surgeons’ lives.  On September 8th 2017 we are holding a one day conference to highlight the effects of dealing with adverse events.  We have been fortunate in attracting eminent speakers from around the UK to contribute to the conference which will be held at the Executive Business School on the Lansdowne Campus.

Speakers include:-

  • Sir Miles Irving (Emeritus Professor of Surgery, Manchester University)
  • Dr Clare Gerada (Medical Director, NHS Practitioner Health Programme)
  • Professor Debbie Cohen (Director, Centre for Physician Health, Cardiff University)
  • Dr Mike Peters (Medical Director, BMA Doctors for Doctors Unit)
  • Dr Suzanne Shale (Medical ethicist advising national bodies following healthcare harm)

Speakers will present the latest research in the area, share insights from their surgical careers and personal experiences, and consider how better support and training can be provided for surgeons.

If you are interested in attending (attendance is free for BU staff) or would like to know more please visit www.surgeonwellbeing.co.uk or contact Professor Siné McDougall (smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk; ext. 61722).

 

 

Tenth anniversary PLOS ONE

BRIAN, international, open access, Publishing, writing

On the tenth anniversary of the international Open Access journal PLOS ONE we received an email to inform us that one of our articles was among the top ten per cent of most cited articles in this journal.  The email referred to our paper ‘Factors influencing adherence to antiretroviral treatment in Nepal: A mixed-methods study’ [1].  Not bad considering that PLOS ONE has published over 4,300 articles since its inception.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Experiences from a Fusion Investment Funded-Student Research Assistant project aiming to improve the quality of local NHS care

This year several students have been funded to work as student research assistants on Fusion Funded-projects.

Here, BU MSc student Renuka Balasundaram reflects on her experience of taking part in the scheme and completing the project.

Then, her supervisors Dr Samuel Nyman and Louise Fazakarley share their experiences and encourage staff to participate in the next scheme.

MSc Student reflection

“My experience as a research assistant on the NHS Quality Improvement Project 2017”

 Renuka Balasundaram
Department of Psychology
Bournemouth University 

My voyage to explore the depths into the field of psychology started when I set off for my Masters in Neuropsychology in Bournemouth University right after my completion of Bachelors in psychology from India. The overwhelming coursework aside, the curriculum of teaching as a whole, felt very different. Three months into my master’s and having adapted myself in totally different environs, I decided to take a leap into the unknown by applying for post of SRA for the fusion funded program project, “NHS Quality Improvement Project”. A week after my successful interview with the project supervisors Dr. Samuel Nyman and Louise Fazakarley, I got a mail about my selection in the project which gave me mixed feelings of exhilaration and apprehension. The mixed emotions were mainly because it was my very first involvement in a practical research project involving hospital setup and interaction with patients. Things gradually settled after my induction with the Christchurch day hospital team and since then it had been a happy workplace with a very helpful and welcoming team at the hospital throughout the project. After a clear briefing of the work to be carried out in the hospital by my supervisors, I made regular visits to the hospital twice a week for almost two months followed by a month of data analysis and report writing. At every step of the project, I got full support from my supervisors which aided in the successful completion of the project. With regards to the project, we aimed to evaluate the Otago exercise training programme in Christchurch day hospital for which I used to regularly interact with the team and patients to get background knowledge and feedback about the training. In spite of having completed research modules in my bachelors and masters, as opposed to theory, it felt completely different when dealing with older patients as participants in a real life setting and collecting data from them through observation and regular interaction.

Personally, this research experience has given me insights into research in a real world and practical setting, enhanced my report writing skills and ultimately putting me firmly in pursuit of my future goal of becoming PhD laureate. It has also given me insight in to the meaning and importance of empirical evidence and scientific backup, for when patients come with a belief and hope of improvement after participation in the study. The project not only had a positive impact on me, but also on the hospital team whereby they implemented many of our suggestions and were pleased with our feedback. As learning and transition is key to growth and development, I strongly feel this project has achieved that, by paving way for an improved quality of training which would ultimately benefit the older population.

Supervisors reflection

We had a Student Research Assistant work with us on a quality improvement project based at Christchurch Day Hospital. Working with the Falls Prevention Team, a student (Renuka) conducted an audit of current practice in the Otago exercise programme with a view to improving patient care. We gained service user feedback, reviewed and analysed the data they had collected, and sought to recommend changes to increase their patients’ exercise practice outside of classes. The project culminated with a report that Renuka presented to the team. Two aspects made this project particularly rewarding:

 Learning opportunity for the student
Renuka, a psychology student, had a unique opportunity to work with non-psychology NHS staff as part of a multi-disciplinary team. She was also able to see the importance of research in a real-life context, giving a new depth of understanding to design features. We were also pleased to see our detailed feedback on her draft report transferred to improve her writing in general that she made use with her assignments.

Impact on the Falls Prevention Team
The team praised Renuka for her work and were enthusiastic to implement our recommendations for improving practice, these included changes in the ways they collected data and the inclusion of some behavioural change techniques to increase adherence. The following week we received an email confirming the changes made. It was rewarding to see our work had led to a direct, immediate, and practical, societal impact.

We can recommend the scheme as it provided an opportunity to co-create with the student and an NHS team that has led to a positive outcome that we hope in time will be shown to improve patient care. It also gave new insights into the factors that facilitate implementation of changes in an NHS team.

Dr Samuel Nyman and Louise Fazakarley

Festival of learning 2017: “Human Psychology: When your mind is in my mind”.

Festival of Learning

Evolutionarily, human beings are shaped as social animals and often engage in interpersonal interactions. Recent findings in psychology suggest that one person’s cognition and behaviour could be shaped by another person who performs similar tasks along with that person. The influenced cognitive abilities include memory, attention, face cognition, and action. During this talk, we will introduce some of these scientific findings and the theories behind, along with their potential implications for our everyday life. You will also have the chance to see psychological experiments in action, and to try some of them on-site (if you are willing to volunteer for that :P).

If you are curious about it and want to come along, please try the link below, where you book the tickets for the event and join as on the talk.

Date: Saturday 8 July
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Location: Talbot Campus

https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival-of-learning/events/human-psychology-when-your-mind-is-in-my-mind/

New BU publication: Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research &Education

Knowledge Exchange, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Sam Rowlands, Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, who published an interesting Commentary in the BJOG together with Prof. Roger Ingham from the University of Southampton.  Their paper ‘Long-acting reversible contraception: conflicting perspectives of advocates and potential users’ argues that a patient-centred approach to contraceptive care is fundamental to women’s autonomy.  The authors remind the readers that it needs to be appreciated that unintended pregnancy is most likely to be reduced by fulfilling the unmet need for contraception and encouraging those not using any form of contraception, or  condoms only, to use a method of their choice accompanied by adequate instruction (where necessary) in correct usage.

 

New BU publication in Public Health

international, open access, Publishing, writing

This week the Oxford Encyclopaedia published our contribution on religious organisations and health promotion [1].  The paper in question ‘Faith Communities and the Potential for Health Promotion’ is co-authored by scholars based in England, Scotland and Canada. This new publication is part of a growing number of publications at Bournemouth University on the contribution of faith communities to public health.

Faith communities often have multiple resources, existing networks and an infrastructure that can be applied to health promotion programmes for their own membership or as an outreach to the wider community. Health programmes in a faith community in high-income countries may include targeted initiatives, ranging from walking groups or weight checks, health events, or health assessments, to diabetes self-management. These activities can be organised by charities and NHS organisation and held at local churches, synagogues or mosques which is referred to as faith-placed health promotion.  If the health promotion is part of the ministry of the religious organisation it is referred to as faith-based health promotion.

On top of this encyclopaedia entry, the Open Access journal African Health Sciences [Impact Factor 0.66] accepted our paper in the same field a few weeks ago.  This  paper ‘Influence of faith-based organisations on HIV prevention strategies in Africa: a systematic review’ formed part of the first author’s M.Sc. in Public Health [2]. Our previous papers reported on a study of faith-based and faith-placed health promotion in and around Dundee [3-4].

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Prenatal Health

 

References

  1. Kiger, A., Fagan, D., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Faith Communities and the Potential for Health Promotion. In: Encyclopedia of Health and Risk Message Design & Processing, Parrott, R. (ed.) New York, Oxford University Press. (http://communication.oxfordre.com/).
  2. Ochillo, M., van Teijlingen, E., Hind, M. (2017) Influence of faith-based organisations on HIV prevention strategies in Africa: a systematic review. African Health Sciences (accepted June).
  3. Fagan, D., Kiger, A., van Teijlingen E. (2010) A survey of faith leaders concerning health promotion and the level of healthy living activities occurring in faith communities in Scotland. Global Health Promotion 17(4): 15-23.
  4. Fagan, D., Kiger, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2012) Faith communities and their assets for health promotion: The views from health professionals and faith leaders in Dundee, Scotland, Global Health Promotion 19(2): 27-36.

Psychology PGR Sarah Hodge presents at two prestigious USA conferences and wins prize

PG research, Research Ethics, student research

Representing the research team from Bournemouth University, Sarah Hodge presented cross-disciplinary PhD research at two conferences in Las Vegas (April) and Denver (May).

The first conference Broadcast Education Association (BEA) included a symposium organised and attended by key academics in the area of psychology and gaming and within this Sarah won top paper in the symposium track and 2nd place student paper. The research presented was funded by the University Student Research Assistant (SRA) scheme, which involved collaboration between departments and faculties. The research involved creating a game to measure in-game moral decisions. The research team included Jacqui Taylor and John McAlaney from the Department of Psychology, Davide Melacca and Christos Gatzidis from the Department of Creative Technology, and Eike Anderson from the National Centre for Computer Animation.

 

At the second conference Computers in Human Interaction (CHI), Sarah had a workshop paper accepted on Ethical Encounters in Human Computer Interaction and this naturally stimulated many interesting questions about ethics in research. Sarah was a student volunteer at the conference. Sarah was a Chair student Volunteer at British HCI 2016 that was held at Bournemouth University last summer and this experience supported being accepted as a Student Volunteer at CHI. From this experience Sarah was assigned the role of Day Captain, which involved supporting and overseeing the other student volunteers with their duties. Sarah found it to be a great experience and highly recommends other students to consider being a student volunteer as a great chance to network and it also helps with funding conferences as the registration fee was waived.

 

Hodge, S. Taylor, J & McAlaney, J (2017). Restricted Content: Ethical Issues with Researching Minors’ Video Game Habits Human in Computer Interaction (CHI) May, Denver USA

If you would like more information about the research please contact: shodge@bournemouth.ac.uk

Delivering DEALTS 2!

Training

 

 

 

 

Health Education England  (HEE) has commissioned Bournemouth University to deliver a new ‘‘Train the Trainers’ enhanced education programme called ‘Dementia Education and Learning Through Simulation’  2 (DEALTS 2). This builds on previous work undertaken in 2013/14 by HEE to ensure healthcare professionals understand and can deliver key competencies according to the Dementia Core Skills Education and Training Framework at TIER 2 (Skills for Health and Health Education England, 2015).

Prof Jane Murphy, Dr Michele Board, Dr Michelle Heward and Ashley Spriggs from the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) delivered the first pilot session in Oxford on 10th May 2017.  This interactive day was really well received and included attendance by Jan Zietara, Head of Operational Delivery, HEE; Jacqueline Fairburn-Platt, Associate Dean Quality Improvement, HEE Thames Valley as well as Dementia and Quality Improvement Leads.   Over the next 2 months another 12 sessions will be delivered to trainers across the HEE regions in England. The delivery of the programme will be evaluated as well as the roll-out across England by the trainers themselves to staff to understand the impact the education is having on practice for the delivery of dementia care.  In June the early evaluation work will be supported with the help of a Student Research Assistant, Laurie Emerson.  Laurie is currently a final year psychology student in Faculty Sci Tech.

Third Edition of the EU Falls Festival in Amsterdam (8-9 May 2017)

Student Engagement


Natalia Adamczewska and Yolanda Barrado-Martín represented the Psychology Department and Ageing & Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) at the Third Edition of the EU Falls Festival in Amsterdam on 8th and 9th May 2017. The theme of the congress was: Developing Collaborations across Professions and throughout Europe.

This festival brought together over 200 professionals from multiple disciplines (such as Nursing, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Medicine, Psychology and Technology) working under a common target: The prevention of falls amongst older adults. It was a great opportunity to see how different countries in Europe, but also researchers in America, represented by Dr. Robin Lee, US Lead Home and Recreation Team; and Australia, represented by Kim Delbaere, Falls Balance and Injury Centre, NeuRa; are working under this objective, the resources different countries invest on this and the different approaches used from different disciplines. A variety of interventions were presented from educational to exercise, and a debate was organised regarding the relevance of the role of technologies to prevent falls and support research.

Falls are the first external cause of death amongst older adults which explains the importance of researchers, practitioners and policy makers working together.​ Members of the World Health Organisation and the European Commission were also attending this meeting and sharing their views on the relevance of falls prevention.

Yolanda’s PhD project looks into the acceptability and adherence of participants living with dementia to a Tai Chi exercise intervention. Adherence to falls interventions was one the main concerns of the congress, however, the experiences of those living with dementia remain mostly under-explored.

Natalia focuses on the psychological adjustment to falls in her PhD project and she looks at fall-related PTSD. Various interventions presented at the festival could possibly be applied in order to enable participants to cope with psychological consequences of falling, such as virtual reality treatment presented by Jeff Hausdorff that he originally developed for fall prevention in idiopathic fallers.