Category / writing

New BU mental health paper published

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to FHSS students Folashade Alloh and Igoche Onche who found out today that their ‘Mental health in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC): Going beyond the need for funding’ has been accepted for publication by the editors of Health Prospect.  The paper is co-authored by FHSS staff Dr Pramod Regmi, Prof Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr Steven Trenoweth. Health Prospect is an Open Access journal.

More than 70% of the global mental health burden occurs in many low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). The paper discusses mental health issues in LMIC under different themes such as abuse and mental illness, cultural influence on mental health, need for dignity in care, meeting financial and workforce gaps and the need for national health policy for mental health sector. The paper highlights that mental health education and health care services in most LMIC is poorly resourced; however, there is an urgent need to address issues beyond funding that contribute to poor mental health. In order to meet the increasing challenge of mental health illness in LMIC, there is a need for effort to address cultural and professional practices that contribute to poor mental health among individuals. The authors argue that mental health should be integrated into primary health care in LMIC. Creating awareness on impact of some cultural attitudes/practices will encourage better uptake of mental health services and increase the ease of discussing mental health issues in these countries which will contribute to reducing stigma faced by mental health patients.

Grant Development & Writing Retreat 10 – 12 September 2018

Funding opportunities, writing

 

 

 

Do you have a great idea for research in health, social care or public health?

Would you or your team benefit from protected time and expert support to develop your idea into a competitive funding application?

Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) are offering a unique opportunity for health, social care and public health professionals across England to attend a three-day residential Grant Development & Writing Retreat – 10-12 September 2018, School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury.

Applications are invited from individuals or teams of two or three people, at least one of whom must be a health, social care or public health professional working in England. Successful applicants will be offered a free place at the retreat which will include food and accommodation*.The purpose of the Retreat is to give busy professionals dedicated time to rapidly progress their research proposal.

If you think your research team would benefit from protected time and expert support, you can apply to attend the Retreat by submitting a standard form which is available from your local RDS office, hosted by BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) on the 5th floor of Royal London House. Feel free to pop in and see us, call us on 61939 or send us an email.

If in doubt, please contact the coordinating centre at rds.sw@nihr.ac.uk

Delegates are encouraged to work on their projects with local RDS staff before applying to attend the Retreat. The views of the RDS will play an important part in deciding which teams will be invited to attend. It is crucial, therefore, that teams work closely with their local RDS advisers when preparing their applications. It is advisable for teams considering attending the Retreat to contact their local RDS office as early as possible.

The deadline for submission of this form is 12noon, Wednesday 6 June 2018.

 * excludes travel to/from Canterbury.

Find out more about the Retreat.

Publication by BU midwifery student

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Publishing, Student Engagement, student research, writing

Rebecca Weston, BU student midwife, on the publication of her article: ‘When all you want to do is run out of the room…‘  Rebecca published this reflective piece in May issue of the journal The Practising Midwife.  She wrote it shortly after having been involved in “a traumatic, sudden and heart-breaking event in practice”.   Reflection is certainly beneficial in experiential learning, developing critical thinking and integrating midwifery theory and practice.

It is my pleasure to wrote this BU Research Blog to congratulate Rebecca today on the International day of the Midwife. 

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

 

Would you attend a workshop on Writing and Presenting for Non-academic Audiences?

writing

Calling BU’s Early Career Researchers and Post Doc Research Assistants!

RKEO are gauging interest for a proposed externally-facilitated workshop. Please let us know if you would attend a workshop that will:

  • Consider the various audiences for your research
  • How best to write to engage them
  • Increase your the impact for your research outside the academic environment.

Please let us know by Friday, 11th May, via this email. If we have positive replies, we would look to run this one-day event in mid to late June (TBC).

 

 

 

 

Your ‘Timely Reminder’ – Get yourself booked in – don’t miss these Events!

Awarded & submitted bids, Funding opportunities, writing

Your ‘Timely Reminder’

Every year, the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office, along with internal and external delivery partners, runs over 150 events to support researcher development through the Research & Knowledge Exchange Development Framework (RKEDF).

Responding to your feedback and by popular request, below are the main events coming up over the next two months – please click on the event titles that are of interest to find out more and reserve your place as soon as possible:

APRIL 2018

Thursday 5th April – The BU Protocol of Academics Engaging with Business

Tuesday 10th April – Grants Workshop & Follow-up Bid Writing Retreat Day 1 of 2

Wednesday 11th April – STEAMlab 3: Industrial Challenges (N.B. This event welcomes non-BU attendees) 

11th, 12th & 13th April – Writing Academy

Tuesday 17th April – Research Ethics @ BU

Wednesday 18th April – Open data and the need for research data management plans,  Getting started on applying for research funding,  Pre-award finances, BU processes for applying for funding and Quality approvals at BU

Thursday 19th April – International Funding – Working with ASEAN countries

23rd & 24th April –An Introduction to Statistic Analysis with SPSS (Intermediate Session)

25th & 26th April – MSCA IF bid writing retreat – 2 days

MAY 2018

Wednesday 2nd May – Introduction to the Royal Academy of Engineering – Visit

Wednesday 2nd May – EU funding outside Horizon 2020

Tuesday 8th May – Grants Workshop & Follow-up Bid Writing Retreat Day 2 of 2

Wednesday 9th May – Wellcome Trust- Visit

Wednesday 9th May – KTPs – an introduction

Monday 14th May – Fellowship Interview Training – Royal Academy of Engineering

Wednesday 16th May – Applying for funding from NIHR – an Overview of the Schemes Available (N.B. This event welcomes non-BU attendees) 

Wednesday 16th May –  Introducing and Evidencing Research Impact: the Basics

Thursday 17th May – Engaging with policy makers

Friday 18th May –  Preparing impact case studies for the Research Excellence Framework: a workshop

Tuesday 22nd May – Writing Academy – Writing Day

Wednesday 23rd May – What is the Research Excellence Framework?

 

To see all the events within the RKEDF and the wider Organisational Development offering, please refer to the handy Calendar of Events.

Congratulations to two FHSS PhD students

international, open access, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to two Faculty of Health & Social Sciences PhD students, Preeti Mahato and Elizabeth Waikhaka, who co-authored a paper published in the WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health. Their paper is called ‘Social autopsy: a potential health-promotion tool for preventing maternal mortality in low-income countries’.[1]   Co-authors include Dr. Puspa Pant from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Health, University of the West of England (Bristol) and Dr. Animesh Biswas based at the Reproductive & Child Health Department, Centre for Injury Prevention & Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka.

The authors argue that verbal autopsy is used to attribute a clinical cause to a maternal death.  The aim of social autopsy is to determine the non-clinical contributing factors. A social autopsy of a maternal death is a group interaction with the family of the deceased woman and her wider local community, where facilitators explore the social causes of the death and identify improvements needed. Although still relatively new, the process has proved useful to capture data for policy-makers on the social determinants of maternal deaths. This article highlights the potential role of social autopsy in health promotion.

Reference:

  1. Mahato, P.K, Waithaka, E., van Teijlingen, E., Pant, P.R., Biswas, A. (2018) Social autopsy: a potential health-promotion tool for preventing maternal mortality in low-income countries. WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health 7(1): 24–28.

CMMPH lecturer Daisy Wiggins’ paper published

open access, PG research, Publishing, student research, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to Daisy Wiggins in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the publication of her paper ‘The effect of a birthplace decision support tool on women’s decision-making and information gathering behaviours during pregnancy: mybirthplace study protocol’.  The paper is published in the Open Access journal Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics and can be accessed by clicking here!  The paper is co-authored by CMMPH’s Prof. Vanora Hundley, Dr. Carol Wilkins, as well asProf. Carol Bond (University of Wolverhampton) and the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) Gill Walton.

 

Congratulations to all!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

Wiggins D, Hundley VA, Wilkins C, Bond C, Walton G. The effect of a birthplace decision support tool on women’s decision-making and information gathering behaviours during pregnancy: mybirthplace study protocol. J Innov Health Inform.2018;25(1):001–006.

 

New CMMPH paper accepted in Nurse Education Today

international, PG research, Publishing, student research, Training, writing

Congratulations to Mrs. Preeti Mahato on the acceptance of her paper ‘Qualitative evaluation of mental health training of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in rural Nepal’ by Nurse Education Today, an academic journal published by Elsevier.   Preeti is currently registered as PhD student in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).  The paper is co-authored by CMMPH’s Catherine Angell and Edwin van Teijlingen as well as BU Visiting Faculty Padam Simkhada and Jillian Ireland.  The paper is a result of the evaluation part of the ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’ project and written on behalf of this THET team.

Our THET project in Nepal is a collaboration between the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), Tribhuvan University (Nepal’s oldest university) and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). The project receives funding from DFID, and is managed through THET and supported locally in Nepal by a charity Green Tara Nepal.

 

THET team:

Edwin van Teijlingen, Padam Simkhada, Shyam K Maharjan Preeti Mahato, Bhimsen Devkota, Padmadharini Fanning, Jillian Ireland, Bibha Simkhada, Lokendra Sherchan, Ram Chandra Silwal, Shyam K Maharjan, Ram K Maharjan, Catherine Angell, Flora Douglas.

 

 

 

Latest editorial on Nepal by Dr. Regmi in FHSS

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Last week the Journal of Manmoham Memorial Institute of Health Sciences based in Nepal published as its editorial ‘What can we learn from the Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015. [1]  The Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015 is a first of its kind.  It is a much needed start to help analyse and improve the workings of the country’s health system.  This is very important and timely as one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is to reduce premature mortality by one-third from non-communicable diseases.  Success in this effort will depend on the concerted efforts on health facilities (for both health promotion, prevention and management) for an early and optimal care. The editorial also raises some of the ethical and methodological issues associated with the first ever Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015.  The lead author of the editorial is Dr. Pramod Regmi and our co-authors include Prof. Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences).  The Journal of Manmoham Memorial Institute of Health Sciences is an Open Access journal hence freely available to scholars and politicians and health managers across the globe, including those based in low-income countries such as Nepal.

 

Reference:

  1. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P, Kurmi, O, Pant, P. (2017) What can we learn from the Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015? Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (JMMIHS) 3(1): 1-5

 

Systematic Review birthing centres by CMMPH PhD student Preeti Mahato

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, Student Engagement, student research, writing

BU PhD student Mrs Preeti Mahato published her latest scientific paper ‘Determinants of quality of care and access to Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care facilities and midwife-led facilities in low and middle-income countries: A Systematic Review’ in the Journal of Asian Midwives [1].  This paper is co-authored by Dr. Catherine Angell and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, who are both based in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and Prof. Padam Simkhada, BU Visiting Professor and based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).  Journal of Asian Midwives is a free Open Access journal, freely available for anybody across the globe to read online.

The authors highlight that maternal mortality is a major challenge to health systems in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) where almost 99% of maternal deaths occurred in 2015. Primary-care facilities providing Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (BEmONC) facilities, and facilities that are midwife-led are appropriate for normal birth in LMICs and have been proposed as the best approach to reduce maternal deaths. However, the poor quality of maternal services that leads to decreased utilisation of these facilities is among the major causes of maternal deaths worldwide. This systematic review studied factors affecting the quality of care in BEmONC and midwife-led facilities in LMICs.

Thematic analysis on included studies revealed various factors affecting quality of care including facility-level determinants and other determinants influencing access to care. Facility-level determinants included these barriers: lack of equipment and drugs at the facility, lack of trained staff, poor attitudes and behaviour of service providers, and poor communication with women. Facility-level positive determinants were: satisfaction with services, emotional support during delivery and trust in health providers. The access-to-care determinants were: socio-economic factors, physical access to the facility, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and cultural values.  The authors include that improving quality of care of birthing facilities requires addressing both facility level and non-facility level determinants in order to increase utilization of the services available at the BEmONC and midwife-led facilities in LMICs.

This is the fifth paper co-authored by CMMPH’s current most published PhD student.  The evaluation of birth centres in rural Nepal by Preeti Mahato under joint supervision Dr. Angell and Prof. Simkhada (LJMU) and Prof. van Teijlingen.

References:

  1. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C. (2017) Determinants of quality of care & access to Basic Emergency Obstetric & Neonatal Care facilities & midwife-led facilities in low & middle-income countries: A Systematic Review, Journal of Asian Midwives 4(2):25-51.
  2. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C. (2016) Birthing centres in Nepal: Recent developments, obstacles and opportunities, Journal of Asian Midwives 3(1): 18-30. http://ecommons.aku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=jam
  3. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Sheppard, Z., Silwal, R.C. (2017) Factors related to choice of place of birth in a district in Nepal. Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare 13: 91-96.
  4. Mahato, P.K., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C., Sathian, B. (2015) Birthing centre infrastructure in Nepal post 2015 earthquake. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(4): 518-519. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/14260/11579
  5. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sharma, S., Mahato, P. (2016) Sustainable Development Goals: relevance to maternal & child health in Nepal. Health Prospect 15(1):9-10. www.healthprospect.org/archives/15/1/3.pdf