Category / Health, Wellbeing & Society

Panel discussion at Conference of the Canadian Society Sociology of Health Montreal 2014

Bournemouth University Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen was invited to take part in a panel discussion at the 4th Conference of the Canadian Society of Sociology of Health.  The panel consisted of academics are long-term collaborators on a project called Birth by Design (BBD).  The meeting was made possible by fellow BBD collaborator Prof. Ivy Bourgeault (University of Ottawa).

The BBD collaboration comprises academics from a range of different scholarly backgrounds including sociology, political science and midwifery.  The group started in 1997 with international colleagues who worked originally on a collaborative project called ‘Birth in Europe and North-America’.  This work resulted in the book Birth by Design1 and many papers in major sociology academic journals including Sociology of Health & Illness and Social Science & Medicine.2-10

 

 

 

 

The panel discussion was introduced and led by BBD collaborator Prof. Cecilia Benoit (University of Victoria, Canada). Dr. Sirpa Wrede (University of Helsinki) outlined the BBD project and the new methodological insights it provided at the time of cross-national comparative research into maternity care.  Prof. Raymond DeVries (University of Michigan & Maastricht Universiteit) spoke of the difficulties Dutch midwives face in their effort to maintain the unique maternity care system in the Netherlands.   Prof. Gene Declercq (Boston University School of Public Health) presented findings of a study of US mothers.  Prof. Jane Sandall (King’s College London) spoke about the policy implementation gap and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen reminded the audience to keep a theoretical perspective in mind when conducting comparative research in general.     Prof. Bourgeault had organised that all slides were translated in the French as the conference was bi-lingual.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

References:

  1.  DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E. & Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe, New York: Routledge.     Birth by Design was short-listed for the 2004 BSA Medical Sociology Book Prize!
  2. van Teijlingen, E.R., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., DeVries, R., Bourgeault, I. (2003) Comparative studies in maternity care RCM Midwives Journal 6: 338-40.
  3. DeVries, R., Wrede, S., van Teijlingen E., Benoit, C. & Declercq, E. (2004). Making Maternity Care: The Consequences of Culture for Health Care Systems. In: Vinken, H., Soeters, J. & Ester, P. (Eds.), Comparing Cultures, Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 209-231.
  4. Benoit, C. Wrede, S., Bourgeault, I, Sandall, J., DeVries, R., van Teijlingen E. (2005) Understanding the social organisation of maternity care systems: Midwifery as a Touchstone, Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(6): 722-737.
  5. Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Bourgeault, I.L., van Teijlingen E.R., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2006) Decentered Comparative Research: Context Sensitive Analysis of Health Care, Social Science & Medicine, 63: 2986-2997.
  6. van Teijlingen, E.R., Wrede, S., Benoit, C., Sandall, J., De Vries, R. (2009) Born in the USA: Exceptionalism in Maternity Care Organisation Among High-Income Countries Sociological Research Online, 14(1) www.socresonline.org.uk/14/1/5.html
  7. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Wrede, S., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E.R., Westfall, R. (2009) The reconfiguration of professional relations with clients: social service professionalism or market expert? Current Sociology 57(4): 529–553.
  8. Bourgeault, I.L., Declercq, E., Sandall, J., Wrede, S., Vanstone, M., van Teijlingen E. DeVries, R. & Benoit, C. (2008) Too posh too push? Comparative perspectives on maternal request caesarean sections in Canada, the US, the UK and Finland. In: Chambré, S.M. & Goldner, M. (eds.) Advances in Medical Sociology Patients, consumers and civil society. Vol. 10. London: JAI Press, 99-123.
  9. Sandall, J., Benoit, C., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. (2012) Gender and maternal healthcare. In: Kuhlmann E. & Annandale, E. (eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Gender & Healthcare (2nd edn.). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 389-404.
  10. Benoit, C., Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., Declercq, G. & De Vries, R. Maternity Care as Global Health Policy Issue. In: E. Kuhlmann, E., Bourgeault, I. (eds.) Palgrave International Handbook on Health Care Policy & Governance,  Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming).

More about academic writing

Earlier this year (13th Jan. 2014) we wrote a BU Research Blog under the title ‘Writing about academic publishing’.  We can now add two further contributions this body of work.  The first article in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology offers some advice on how to construct a title for an academic article.  The authors (BU Professors Edwin van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley; BU Visiting Faculty Ms. Jillian Ireland and Dr. Padam Simkhada and international collaborator Dr. Brijesh Sathian) have a wealth of experience reviewing papers and all have experience as editor board members and/or editors.  The authors are associated the editorial boards of the many journals, including: Birth, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, Medical Science, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, Essentially MIDIRS, Sociological Research Online, Hellenic Journal of Nursing Science, Midwifery and Asian Journal of Health Sciences.  In our joint capacity as reviewers and editors we have seen some great and some awful titles.  The paper in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an attempt to improve the appropriateness and usefulness of titles chosen by budding authors.

Editorial Midwifery 2014

Editorial Midwifery 2014

The second addition is an editorial in the international journal Midwifery published by Elsevier.  Together with HSC Visiting Faculty Prof. Debra Bick we address the question: ‘Who should be an author on your academic paper?’   Still too often we hear about worrying stories from fellow academic s and postgraduate students about inappropriate behaviour related to authorship of academic journal papers.  The Midwifery Editorial advises academics to discuss authorship and authorship order early on in the writing process.  At the same time, it highlights that authorship ‘rules’ or ‘traditions’ can vary between different academic disciplines.  Thus when working in a multidisciplinary team, issues of authorship of any papers which arise out of the study should be discussed before problems or concerns arise.

 

We would like to take this opportunity point our readers to another interesting and useful BU Research Blog written by Shelly Maskell under the title: ‘How to design a completely uninformative title’ (7th Feb. 2014).

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Prof. Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sathian, B. (2014) Finding the right title for your article: Advice for academic authors, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(1): 344-347.
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Bick, D. (2014) Who should be an author on your academic paper? Midwifery 30: 385-386.

 

Highest marks for International Fellowship for Midwives research in Nepal

 

In 2013 Wellbeing of Women joined the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) to offer the International Fellowship for Midwives (worth £20,000).  Their first ever recipient was BU Lesley Milne with her supporting team.  Lesley is a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery based at BU’s Portsmouth Branch Campus and her proposal set out to undertake a research project to explore barriers to facility birth in Nepal.

 

Delivery bed small hospital Nepal

Apart from Lesley herself the BU team comprises Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research, and two HSC Visiting Faculty members, namely Dr. Padam Simkhada, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, and Ms. Jillian Ireland, Community Midwife NHS Poole Hospitals.

 

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

Small commercial pharmacy outside local hospital (Nepal)

At the end of March 2014 we submitted the final report on the research to Well-Being of Women and the RCM and this report gained an ‘A’ in their scoring system.  Last week at the feedback meeting in Well-Being of Women’s office in London Lesley presented some of her key findings which she illustrated with some of her photographs.  The comments from those round the table were that the topic was well researched and that the qualitative research findings could help focus the funders in their future work.

 

Having reached the dissemination stage, we are planning scientific papers as well as a feedback session in Kathmandu (in September this year). Currently we are working on two academic papers, one is in an advanced stage approaching submission and the other is just passed its draft stage.

 

 

Lesley Milne, Vanora Hundley, Jillian Ireland (Visiting Faculty),Edwin van Teijlingen & Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty)

 

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care

 


HSC Writing Retreat: Freedom to write

Today saw the first of two Writing Retreat workshops organised by HSC.  The intensive writing day was led by Ms. Caroline Brimblecombe.  Caroline is a Norwich-based training consultant and project manager, who leads workshops in the technique of freewriting, as well as on academic writing.  She holds an MA in Public Policy from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and spent many years as a public sector manager and policy analyst.  She used a combination of exercises based on notions of creative writing and free writing.  The Writing Retreat offered advice and a dedicated space and time to practice academic writing.  Today’s intensive session was attended by the first cohort of HSC academics, who considered some of their challenges to writing and some of the rewards.  Not surprisingly there were more challenges than rewards, and the former included lack of time, high workload and interruptions.   Personal satisfaction and a sense of achievement scored high on the list of rewards.

Caroline suggested the participants considered ‘Serial Writing’.  This is the notion that you write regularly, hence the ‘serial’.  The idea is to create a flow of writing to help you generate content as well as a habit of writing. This will be a valuable tool for workshop participants who have committed to working with a mentor to produce a manuscript for submission by the end of July.

For those motivated staff members who would like to have a go at this.  The next session is planned for the 28th of May and there are still a few free places available.  Please contact Jo Temple if you would like to sign up.

We both participated ourselves and we would highly recommend this Writing Retreat!

 

Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

Compassion in Action with Professor Belinda Dewar

Wednesday 21st May 2014 between 1 – 1.50pm at the Executive Business Centre (EB203)

Professor Belinda Dewar is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the University of the West of Scotland. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on caring and methodologies for improvement which include Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, as well as designing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes. 

In this presentation Professor Belinda Dewar will discuss the evidence base and policy imperatives for compassion and debate myths and misconceptions of compassion and what we are up against to move forward in this area. She will highlight important work that has already gone on in this area and debate how we can build on this. She will also share with you the development of a model for compassionate relationship centred care and discuss the key domains of this model that support practitioners, in education, practice and research to develop skills in compassionate caring. She will look at specific strategies that bring the model to life including emotional touch points, development of positive caring practices and focusing on compassionate proofing of language.

The masterclass is suitable for postgraduate students, academics and professionals who are looking for an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.

For more information, please contact 01202 962184 or email wellbeing@bournemouth.ac.uk

 We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Appreciative Inquiry Masterclass – Thursday 22nd May

The Centre of Qualitative Research at Bournemouth University is pleased to announce its next Masterclass in Appreciative Inquiry: 22nd May 2014

Venue: Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre, 3rd Floor. Book your place now. This masterclass will focus on the use of Appreciative Action Research as an approach to research and development.

Who should attend: The masterclass is suitable for postgraduate students, academics and professionals who are looking for an introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.

Masterclass facilitated by: Professor Belinda Dewar is the Professor of Practice Improvement at the University of the West of Scotland. She has been working with nurses, allied health care professionals, patients, residents and families in a range of care settings over the last 25 years to support improving the experience of giving and receiving care. She is recognised nationally and internationally for her work on caring and methodologies for improvement which include Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, as well as designing and delivering innovative transformational leadership programmes.

Schedule: The day will start at 9.30am and finish around 4.15pm. There will be a mixture of seminars with discussions, Q&A sessions and group activities.

Cost: The fees are as follows: External delegates £95, BU staff £80, BU students £50 and Non BU students £75. The price includes lunch and refreshments and all class materials. Accommodation and travel costs are not included.

To book your place, please use our online booking form. Book your place by Monday 19th May 2014.

For more information, please contact 01202 962184 or email wellbeing@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Best wishes Caroline Ellis-Hill

Masterclass Co-ordinator and Senior Lecturer at BU

Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)

Last week BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen attended the international conference ’Optimising Childbirth Across Europe (Optimise2014)’ [http://optimisebirth.com/] in Brussels, Belgium.  This new conference  in the maternity care field was based on the work of the COST (Co-operation in Science and Technology) Action IS0907.  This Action, over the period 2010-2014, set out to advance scientific knowledge about ways of improving maternity care provision and outcomes for mothers, babies and families across Europe by understanding what works, for who, in what circumstances, and by identifying and learning from the best.

 

As part of this COST Action several academics have spent time over the past three years at Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Susanne Grylka-Bäschlin a Swiss midwife studying at Hannover Medical School, Germany, studied cultural differences in postnatal quality of life among German-speaking women in Switzerland and Germany.  See gave an excellent oral presentation of this first ever study to translate and apply the Mother-Generated Index in German. Mother-Generated Index was originally developed by Dr. Andrew Symon who is based at the University of Dundee [http://dundee.academia.edu/AndrewSymon ].

A further BU contribution to the conference involved the work of another European visitor to the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health.  Dr. Ans Luyben, a Dutch midwife working in Switzerland presented a poster based on work in Switzerland at the COST Action conference at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

EXON by the sea!

 

After many months of negotiation I packed my weekend bag and set off to Eastbourne to provide the first of a six day programme spread over three months on newborn examination, to a select cohort of nine midwives who work for the East Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust. The nearest university (Brighton) does not provide the module and I regularly have midwives travelling up from Brighton to attend the two courses provided annually at the Lansdowne Campus.

Midwives from the midwife led unit (EMU as it is fondly referred to) at Eastbourne Hospital, the acute trust at Hastings and Crowbridge Birthing Unit all joined the module at the beginning of January 2014. Some of the midwives were undertaking the unit in work time and some during their annual leave, but all were enthusiastic and very excited to be finally learning the skills and competencies necessary to become newborn examiners. Currently no midwives in the combined trusts undertake newborn examination and all babies are either examined by junior doctors in training or general practitioners (GPs) in the community setting. For a number of years there have been concerns expressed in the literature around the quality of the newborn examination when undertaken by junior doctors and GPs mainly around training and on-going education. Traditionally doctors in NHS hospitals were taught newborn examination under the mantra ‘see one – do one – teach one’, midwives on the other hand, have had to undergo many months of extra training and are required to undertake between 40 & 60 newborn examinations before being deemed competent. These conditions became onerous for midwives as it became difficult for them to find mentors and assessors to support them in practice. Many requested extensions and in some cases took almost two years to complete. This model of learning was not sustainable in the long run for both the clinical workplace and for university processes. Therefore an opportunity arose to change how BU provided examination of the newborn (EXON) when the post registration framework was re-validated in 2012, with the main difference being in relation to the examinations.

Midwifery is a self-regulating profession; therefore it is up to individual practitioners to judge whether they are component when providing midwifery care. The philosophy of self-regulation underpinning competency guided the provision of the new EXON course in relation to the number of examinations required. Midwives have to carry out a minimum of 10 mentored newborn checks, with five examinations being directly supervised. Once 10 examinations have been carried out midwives can undertake as many self-assessed newborn checks until they feel competent. Once they have reached this point they put themselves forward for one summative assessment which is a newborn examination evaluated in practice.  Midwives have nine months to complete the module. In addition, to further support midwives in training for this role, experienced midwives around the BU patch and as far as West Wiltshire have been provided with a half day update focusing on mentoring/assessing and understanding the EXON paperwork. These midwives have now taken on the role of mentoring and assessing midwives through EXON.

Now having delivered the six day programme the midwives in Eastbourne have successfully completed the academic requirement,s with all passing their ‘enquiry-based learning’ presentations which focused on an aspect of newborn physiology/pathology. The presentations were of an extremely high standard and feedback from the unit leader recommended writing up their work for publication in the British Journal of Midwifery. Their unit evaluations were 100% positive. One of the main benefits centered on the midwives forming a cohesive group and getting to know each other better.  These midwives are leading the way at East Sussex Healthcare. Once they qualify, they in turn, can become mentors and assessors for the next cohort. Perhaps even more importantly, evidence demonstrates that when midwives undertake this expanded role, women’s satisfaction and midwifery autonomy is increased and crucially, there is continuity of care for the woman and her baby and for the midwife herself.

 

For further information on the EXON module please contact Luisa Cescutti-Butler, Senior Lecturer, Lansdowne Campus: lcbutler@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

NIHR Research Design Service Grant Applications Workshop

The Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) is running a free one-day grant applications workshop on Thursday 10 July 2014 at Taunton Racecourse, Somerset.

The grant applications workshop is directed at researchers who are considering applying to peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health or social care research, and is intended to allow them to turn good applications into excellent ones.

If you are interested in attending the workshop you will need to submit an application form and the latest draft of your research proposal by 1pm Monday 9 June 2014.

For more information and to download an application form please go to http://www.rds-sw.nihr.ac.uk/gaw.htm.

Don’t forget, your local branch of the Research Design Service is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us or send us an email.

CoPMRE celebrates joint PhDs

 

Thirty-five clinicians and academics crammed into the Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education’s (CoPMRE) meeting room on the 5th Floor of Royal London House for this Spring’s Visiting Faculty workshop brilliantly organised by Audrey Dixon.  Five excellent presentations from PhD students, with supervisors from BU and local NHS clinicians, showcased the breadth and depth of research from risk stratification for early detection of heart attacks in ED to using the Nintendo Wii to increase activity levels and quality of life in people with multiple sclerosis. Fiona Knight from the Graduate School explained process and policy, Alan Breen from the Anglo European Chiropractic College mused on the benefits of being a PhD supervisor, Zoe Sheppard briefed on HSC’s plan to enhance research impact and Tony Markus called for a special interest group to explore human factors in patient safety. All washed down by plenty of fresh coffee and a buffet lunch. Thanks to all who took part.

Paul Thompson MD FRCP

Director CoPMRE

Fusion – Establishment of research collaboration, student and staff exchanges with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

 My application to the Fusion Investment Fund (FIF) has been successful.  The funds will be used to establish research collaboration, student and staff exchanges with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa. I will be travelling to the UKZN during Easter this month for an exploratory visit. While at UKZN, I will present a paper to the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance. This will be followed by a series of meetings with students and staff. On my return, I will apply to Bournemouth University to put in place the three relationships.

 A successful establishment of the three aforesaid relationships will have many enormous benefits to the students and staff of BU and UKZN. For example, students should benefit culturally in terms of spending sometime in South Africa and UK respectively due to differences in the two countries’ cultures. In addition to cultural awareness, the staff exchange will benefit the staff involved through observing how lecturers in a different country deliver lectures. Apart from co-authoring academic journal articles, research collaboration between BU and UKZN staff should be beneficial where the research call (e.g. Horizon 2020) requires that researchers from Europe collaborate with a partner from South Africa.

 At an institution level, the relationships should help BU in two main ways. Firstly, student exchange should increase awareness of BU in Africa which may translate into increase in percentage of African students enrolled at BU. Increasing the percentage of students from Africa is important for BU because currently less than 4% of our students are from Africa compared to 8% UK universities average. Secondly, the increase in student population from Africa will also help BU achieve the strategic plan objective of increasing overseas students’ recruitment by 15% by 2015.

 UKNZ is the third largest university in South Africa and a very good university and also shares great similarities in university teaching, research and enterprise activities with those of the Business School, School of Tourism, Design, Engineering and Computing, School of Health and Social Care. Further information about the university can be found on: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/.

 Dr Ven Tauringana, Associate Professor of Accounting – The Business School

Congratulations to Dr. Joyce Miller (PhD by Publication)

Congratulations to HSC postgraduate student Joyce Miller who has just completed her PhD by Publication.  Joyce Miller is a chiropractic practitioner and lecturer with over 25 years private practice experience. She is Associate Professor at Anglo-European Chiropractic College in Bournemouth.  Her thesis Effects of Musculoskeletal Dysfunction in Excessive Crying Syndromes of Infancy presents research spanning more than a decade.  Joyce studied the relevance of chiropractic manual therapy to excessive crying in infancy through a unique series of eight clinical academic papers.

 

The eight separate studies used a range of different research methods:

  1. a demographic survey of paediatric patients attending a chiropractic clinic;
  2. a record study to determine the prevalence of side effects or adverse events;
  3. a cohort study to substantiate sub-groups of excessively crying infants;
  4. a prospective observational study to develop a predictive model using likelihood ratios to forecast the presence of infant colic in a clinical population;
  5. validation of a one-page instrument to assess clinical outcomes against the gold standard crying diary;
  6. a randomised comparison trial of two types of chiropractic manual therapy for infant colic;
  7. a randomised controlled single blind trial to determine efficacy of blinding as well as chiropractic manual therapy in management of infant colic;
  8. a case-control study to investigate  long-term effects of chiropractic manual therapy into toddlerhood.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

HSC

Highly Commended Paper by Lorraine Brown, John Edwards & Heather Hartwell.

Congratulations to BU academics Dr. Lorraine Brown, Prof. John Edwards and Prof. Heather Hartwell.  Their recent paper “Eating and emotion: focusing on the lunchtime meal” published in the British Food Journal has been selected by the journal’s Editorial Team as a Highly Commended Paper of 2013.

“Eating and emotion: focusing on the lunchtime meal” was chosen as a Highly Commended Paper winner as it is one of the most impressive pieces of work the British Food Journal has seen throughout 2013.

The three winners will be presented with a certificate by the journal!  The authors are all based in the School of Tourism whilst Prof. Hartwell also has appointment in the School of Health & Social Care.

Details of the paper are listed at the following web site: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0007-070X&volume=115&issue=2&articleid=17077382&show=html

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health, School of Health & Social Care

Dash7 for remote patient monitoring via mobile phone

We would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre that will be delivered by Andrew Yearp.

TitleDash7 for remote patient monitoring via mobile phone

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 26th March 2014

Room: P302 (Poole House, Talbot Campus)

Abstract: Wireless Remote patient monitoring systems provide an improved environment for hospital patients while expanding the range physiological information available to medical personnel. With these developments patients are now free from wires, but are still contained within the range of the wireless monitoring system. This seminar explores the application of Dash7 and mobile phone technologies in patient monitoring, particularly in hospital wards. The functionality of a prototype system which has been developed so far will be demonstrated during this seminar.

We hope to see you there,

 Dr. David John