Tagged / Academic publishing

Pilot studies methods paper cited 500 times

Publishing, writing

This morning ResearchGate alerted us that our paper ‘The importance of pilot studies’ [1] had reached 500 citations.  Profs. Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen, both in BU’s Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) have published several methods papers [1-6] on the importance of (a) conducting pilot studies, but also (b) reporting on their outcomes and lessons learnt.  It started more than two decades ago with lessons learnt from the Scottish Birth study [2]. Followed by a methods paper in a sociology journal [3], one in a midwifery journal [4] and one in a family planning journal [5].  The icing on the pudding was an encyclopedia entry in 2003 [6].

 

References:

  1. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2002) ‘The importance of pilot studies’ Nursing Standard 16(40): 33-36. Web: nursing-standard.co.uk/archives/vol16-40/pdfs/vol16w40p3336.pdf
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Rennie, AM., Hundley, V., Graham, W. (2001) The importance of conducting & reporting pilot studies: example of Scottish Births Survey, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 34: 289-95.
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2001) The importance of pilot studies, Social Research Update Issue 35, (Editor N. Gilbert), Guildford: University of Surrey. Web:  http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/sru/SRU35.html
  4. Hundley, V., van Teijlingen E. (2002) The role of pilot studies in midwifery research RCM Midwives Journal 5(11): 372-74.
  5. van Teijlingen, E, Hundley, V. (2005) Pilot studies in family planning & reproductive health care, Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 31(3): 219-21.
  6. van Teijlingen E, Hundley, V. (2003) Pilot study, In: Encyclopaedia of Social Science Research Methods, Vol. 2, Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. & Liao, T. (eds.), Orego, Sage: 823-24.

 

Congratulations on new paper by BU PhD graduate

Guidance, PG research, Publishing, Research Ethics, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Karim Khaled on the latest paper from his BU Ph.D. research.  This article ‘Ethical Issues and Challenges Regarding the Use of Mental Health Questionnaires in Public Health Nutrition Research‘ [1] was published earlier this month in the international journal Nutrients. 

Karim is currently based at Birmingham City University, and the paper is co-authored with his  Ph.D. supervisors Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Prof. Vanora Hundley in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences.  This paper addresses the potential burden of completing mental health questionnaires on (a) participants and (b) researchers. This examines ethical issues and challenges of using such scales and questionnaires, providing a real-life case study where the Beck’s Depression Inventory-II was used.
The ethical considerations raised by using mental health questionnaires in epidemiological research include incorrectly identifying participants as depressed or non-depressed; inability to identify participants for referral procedures due to the anonymous nature of some research studies; an increased burden on participants through depression and suicidal questions; and the high expectation of participants towards the researcher. Preventative measures to reduce these challenges include choosing appropriate cut-off scores for correctly identifying participants; highlighting whether mental health questionnaires used may elicit negative emotional or psychological reactions related to suicide ideation; specifying the criteria for referral to clinical services; detailing the intended referral processes; including approaches where the researcher directly connects participants with a psychological service provider; and including a passive referral method such as contact details for participants to initiate their own referrals to clinical care.  The authors offer a guide for researchers aiming to collect data on mental health through questionnaires, and they conclude that ethical challenges should be considered and reviewed at all stages of the research project.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Reference:

  1. Khaled, K., Tsofliou, F., Hundley, V. (2025). Ethical Issues and Challenges Regarding the Use of Mental Health Questionnaires in Public Health Nutrition Research Nutrients 17 (4): 715. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17040715

 

 

Advancing Rehabilitation Research

international, Publishing, Training, writing

Rehabilitation research has long remained in the shadows of other health/medical disciplines, despite its immense potential to reshape patient outcomes and community health. The Rehabilitation Research Symposium Series in Qatar is a significant initiative aligned with global and national frameworks such as the WHO’s (World Health Organization) Rehabilitation 2030 and Qatar’s National Vision 2030.

Advancing Rehabilitation Research: Building Capacity for Evidence-Based Practice:  Level 2 Rehabilitation Research Symposium serves as a powerful response to the growing call for a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to rehabilitation, both locally and globally.  The second day of this symposium, tomorrow (January 4th 2025), includes a session by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.  He has been invited to help build research capacity in the field of academic writing and publishing.

Bournemouth University collaboration in Qatar centres on academics and clinicians based at Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC).  HMC has been appointed as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Ageing and Dementia, under auspices of Ministry of Public Health in Qatar.

 

Academic writing: Six encouragements

Publishing, writing

The Festive Season is a good time to clean up and clear out the pile of paper collected throughout the proceeding year.  One the many pieces of potentially useful information I archived was a three-page article from the April edition of the monthly magazine Prima [1].  Most certainly not the most academic magazine, but useful all the same, as it was a piece encouraging readers to write their own book.

The six steps or recommendations in Prima were:

  • Figure out what you want to write;
  • Make time to write;
  • Find your writing method;
  • Forget about perfection;
  • Keep going (even when the going gets though);
  • Find writing buddies!

I found it interesting as these six steps in this piece overlap a lot with the advice we have been giving to budding academics for years [2].

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)

 

References:

  1. Gibson, F. (2024) How to write a novel and get published, Prima (April edition): 38-40.
  2. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Hundley, V. with Shreesh, K. (2022) Writing and Publishing Academic Work, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books

New weight change BU paper

PG research, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) PhD student Eirini-Iro Arvanitidou and two FHSS colleagues Dr. Fotini Tsofliou, and Dr. Juliet Wood who published together with Ioulia Tsatsani (Stanley Centre for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, USA) the paper ‘The effectiveness of couples’ lifestyle interventions on weight change: A systematic review and meta-analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials‘.

Iro is a PhD student and this systematic review and meta-analysis is the first to investigate the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions targeting couples on weight loss, compared to interventions focused on individuals or standard care. The findings suggest that interventions aimed at couples lead to greater weight loss, though the results should be interpreted with caution due to the wide heterogeneity among the studies. The authors conclude that further research is needed with evidence-based study designs, targeting younger participants, and incorporating intervention of longer duration, and longer follow-up periods.

Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
  1. Arvanitidou, E. I., Tsofliou, F., Wood, J., & Tsatsani, I. (2024). The effectiveness of couples’ lifestyle interventions on weight change: A systematic review and meta-analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials. Nutrition and health, 2601060241291123. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/02601060241291123

Congratulations to three former BU staff

Publishing, writing

Bournemouth University Emeritus Professor, Jonathan Parker, now Health Services University, UK, former BU academic Professor Vanessa Heaslip, now Salford University and Professor Sarah Hean and Pravin Tembjerg from the University of Stavanger, Norway, are pleased to announce the publication of their edited international research collection Rebuilding Family Relations for Children and Youth Separated from Family.  This edited volume is published by Palgrave Macmillan.

This edited volume explores a range of causes for separation of children and young people from family, the impact of these causes, and methods that both professionals and families may employ to build or rebuild these relations. In particular, contributions focus on six high priority crises through which children and young people become either permanently or temporarily separated from their families: removal by child welfare services, migration, family breakdown, placement into institutional care, incarceration and/or the death of a parent. Contributors include scholars in social work, psychology, health, sociology, social policy, and political science and the work develops co-production participatory research methods and tools in addition to empirical research to enhance professional practice.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

Paper with a difference

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Last night ResearchGate informed us that our paper ‘Understanding health education, health promotion and public health‘ had reached 6,000 reads [1].  This reflective paper in an Open Access journal tries to bring a little more clarity in the confusion around the difference between the concepts of health education, health promotion and public health. We argue that such confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some authors and public health practitioners use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others see them clearly as different concepts.

In this theoretical overview paper, we have first of all outlined our understanding of these individual terms. We suggest how the five principles of health promotion as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) fit into Andrew Tannahill’s model from 2009 [2] of three overlapping areas: (a) health education; (b) prevention of ill health; and (c) health protection. Our schematic overview places health education within health promotion and health promotion itself in the center of the overarching disciplines of education and public health. We hope our representation helps reduce confusion among all those interested in our discipline, including students, educators, journalists, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and researchers.

The paper is co-authored by a primary school teacher based in Dorset, and four professors who have a combined experience in the wider public health field of over a century.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

References:

  1. 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.
  2. Tannahill, A. (2009). Health promotion: The Tannahill model revisited. Public Health, 123(5),396-399. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2008.05.021

First EPPOCH study paper accepted for publication

open access, Publishing, writing

This afternoon the editorial office of Frontiers in Psychiatry informed us that our manuscript “Prenatal maternal mental health and resilience in the United Kingdom during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A cross-national comparison” [1] has been accepted for publication in Frontiers in Psychiatry, section Perinatal Psychiatry.   An interdisciplinary team from Germany, Canada and the UK designed and initiated a longitudinal pregnancy cohort in the United Kingdom titled Maternal mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Effect of the Pandemic on Pregnancy Outcomes & Childhood Health (EPPOCH).    In the second half of  2020, we recruited 3,600 pregnant individuals via self-enrollment through our website ‘www.eppoch-uk.org’. Our EPPOCH study has since collected a wealth of validated questionnaire data at multiple time points, from mothers (during pregnancy and postpartum) and their children (from birth to age 3), and we are currently distributing our 4-year childhood follow-up questionnaire. This is the first paper from the EPPOCH study.

The UK team is a collaboration between Bournemouth University and University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, the latter through Professor Minesh Khashu and Dr. Latha Vinayakarao based in Poole Maternity Hospital. The German team is led by Dr. Melanie Conrad, previously at Charité University Medicine Berlin, and now associated with the University of Augsburg, and includes Swarali Datye, PhD student at Charité University Medicine Berlin, whilst our Canadian collaborator, Alison MacRae-Miller, is based at the University of British Columbia, Victoria.  This EPPOCH cohort is closely linked with a sister cohort in Canada called the Pregnancy During the Pandemic (PDP) study.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

 

Reference:

  1. Datye, S., Smiljanic, M., Shetti, R.H., MacRae-Miller, A., van Teijlingen, E., Vinayakarao, L., Peters, E.M.J., Lebel, C.A., Tomfohr-Madsen, L., Giesbrecht, G., Khashu, M., Conrad, M.L. (2024) Prenatal maternal mental health and resilience in the United Kingdom during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A cross-national comparison, Frontiers in Psychiatry, (accepted).

New publication Dr. Pramod Regmi

international, open access, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Pramod Regmi on the publication of his latest Open Access paper ‘Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life of Stroke Survivors in Southeast Communities in Nigeria’ [1].  Dr. Regmi is based in the Centre for  for Wellbeing & Long-Term Health.   The paper’s co-authors include Dr. Folashade Alloh, who completed her PhD studies at Bournemouth University a few years ago.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

Reference:

  1. Adigwe GA, Alloh F, Smith P, Tribe R, Regmi P. Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life of Stroke Survivors in Southeast Communities in Nigeria. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2024; 21(9):1116. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21091116

4th Int Conf on Medical & Health Sciences 2024

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) has been invited to give a key note address at the 4th International Conference on Medical & Health Sciences 2024 in Mauritius next month.  Edwin will be highlighting the difficulties of conducting interdisciplinary research, based on recent CMWH publications [1-2].  At the conference Edwin will also join two Bournemouth University Visiting Faculty members in running a workshop on academic publishing, his co-presenters are Ms. Jillian Ireland, Professional Midwifery Advocate at UHD (University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust), and Prof. Padam Simkhada (University of Huddersfield).

 

In addition, Edwin has also been invited at this upcoming conference be act as a panelist to analyse the current research strengths of SSR (Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam) Medical College, Mauritius. Interestingly, the panel activity will take place over two days: a 15-minute SWOT analysis on September 16, followed by a 45-minute panel discussion on September 17.

References:

  1. Shanker, S., Wasti, S.P., Ireland, J., Regmi, P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) The Interdisciplinary Team Not the Interdisciplinarist: Reflections on Interdisciplinary Research, Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences 3(2): 1-5. https://doi.org/10.46405/ejms.v3i2.317 
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Adhikary, P., Aryal, N., Simkhada, P. (2019). Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward. Health Prospect, 18(1), 4-7. https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v18i1.19337
  3. van Teijlingen E. (2008) RAE pulls academics away from applied multidisciplinary health promotion research International Journal of Health Promotion & Education 46: 116.

 

Request for your paper: A historical perspective

international, open access, Publishing, REF Subjects

Any publishing academic will irregularly receive emails for copies of their papers, usually for papers which researchers or students can’t access through their own institution.  Different universities have different expensive deals with publishers, and especially for universities in low-income countries this can be very limiting.  Apart from requests for papers I also receive email requests for book chapter which are part of commercial textbooks, or people asking for a PDF, i.e. a free electronic copy, of the whole textbook.  Recently I have also had a couple of requests for papers which are already freely available as Open Access publications.  I assume the latter are simply requests from lazy students, who searched a bibliographic data base found several (many?) relevant papers.  Without too much thinking they send quick automated email through ResearchGate, which is less work that searching for each actual Open Access paper online.

It did not always use to be that easy to approach an academic for a copy of their scientific paper.  When I started as a PhD student, before the widespread use of the internet, if your university library did not have a subscription to the journal you were looking for, you would write a short letter to an academic author, post the letter, and if your were lucky, receive a printed copy of the requested paper in the post a few weeks later. The more established academics would have pre-printed postcards to speed up the process of requesting an academic paper.  The photo of the 1959 (for the record this was before I was born!) shows one of such cards from a doctor based in the Netherlands.  The effort involved meant you asked only for papers you were pretty sure where central to your research, you would not do the equivalent of sending out 40 emails, hoping to get PDFs of six or seven papers relevant to your essay topic.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

New sociology paper Freedom from Academentia

international, open access, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to Laura Favaro, Lecturer in Social Science in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, who published the paper ‘Let us be free from “ACADEMENTIA”’ this last weekend of June [1].   “Survivor of academentia” is how one former lecturer in sociology described herself when to Laura interviewed her for her ethnography of academia. In particular, the research explored the “gender wars”, namely the disputes around sex and gender that have escalated dramatically since the mid 2010s in Britain and increasingly also in many other countries. This article builds on feminist and other critical uses of the term academentia with original insights from interview and document data about the detrimental impact of queer theory and politics. The hope is to stimulate further inquiry into the push towards queering at universities, and beyond, as well as into the connections between the
transgender and mad movements.

The content of this paper has been covered by writer Victoria Smith in  The Critic  and Laura will be presenting about this exciting topic at a conference this summer.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

Reference:

Favaro, L. (2024) Let us be free from “Academentia”, Cuestiones de género: de la igualdad y la diferencia. Nº. 19: 659-92.

 

The importance of understanding mixed methods

international

Earlier this week ResearchGate alerted us that the paper ‘The Growing Importance of Mixed-Methods Research in Health‘ has been read 900 times on that platform [1].  This methods paper focuses on  the growing importance of mixed-methods research to a wide range of health disciplines ranging from nursing to epidemiology.

Mixed-methods approaches requires not only the skills of the individual quantitative and qualitative methods but also a skill set to bring two methods/datasets/findings together in the most appropriate way. Health researchers need to pay careful attention to the ‘best’ approach to designing, implementing, analysing, integrating both quantitative (number) and qualitative (word) information and writing this up in a way that enhances its applicability and broadens the evidence-based practice. This paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of mixed-methods approaches as well as some of the common mistakes made by researchers applying mixed-methods for the first time.

Our team in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) has written several other methods papers on the importance of mixed-methods research in community-based health studies [2-5].  We have, of course, conducted and published many mixed-methods studies over the past two decades [see for example 6-10].

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

 

 

References:

  1. Wasti, S. P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Sathian, B., & Banerjee, I. (2022). The Growing Importance of Mixed-Methods Research in Health . Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 12(1), 1175–1178.
  2. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Wasti, S.P., Sathian, B. (2014) Mixed-methods approaches in health research in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 415-416.
  3. Mahato, P., Angell, C., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2018) Using Mixed-methods Research in Health & Education in Nepal, Journal of Health Promotion 6: 45-8.
  4. Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, E., Parrish, M. (2022) Mixed-methods research on androgen abuse – a review, Current Opinion in Endocrinology & Diabetes 29(6):586-593.
  5. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. Pitchforth, E. (2014) Advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 417-422. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/12018/9768
  6. Pitchforth, E, Watson, V, Tucker, J, Ryan, M, van Teijlingen E, Farmer, J, Ireland, J, Thomson, E, Kiger, A , Bryers, H. (2008) Models of intrapartum care and women’s trade-offs in remote and rural Scotland: A mixed-methods study BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 115(5): 560-569.
  7. Wasti, SP, Simkhada, P., Randall, J, van Teijlingen, E, Freeman, J. (2012) Factors influencing adherence to antiretroviral treatment in Nepal: a mixed-methods study. PLoS ONE 7(5): e35547. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035547.
  8. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, RS, Sathian, B. (2014) Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(4): 405-14.
  9. Dost, S., Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E. (2023) Management capacity in the Afghan Ministry of Public Health pre-Taliban: A mixed-methods study of political and socio-cultural issues, Razi International Medical Journal, 3(1): 9–18
  10. Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E, Hundley, V., Stephens J., Simkhada, P., Angell, C., Sicuri, E., Belizan, J.M. (2013) Mixed-methods evaluation of maternity care intervention in rural Nepal: measuring what works, Poster P.2.3.004(A), Tropical Medicine & International Health 18(Suppl. 1): 183-184.

New eBook published in April

international

Two weeks ago our eBook Evidence-based approaches in aging and public health was published online by Frontiers Media [1].  This ebook is co-edited by BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Brijesh Sathian (based in Qatar), Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at the University of Huddersfield) and Prof. Edwin van Teijingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) as well as Drs. Russell Kabir and Hanadi Al Hamad.  This eBook started life as a Special Issue for the journal Frontiers in Public Health.  We wrote the accompanying editorial for 15 selected articles in this Special Issue [2].  This publication raises the interesting question when does a Special Issue become an eBook.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

 

References:

  1. Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Al Hamad, H., Kabir, R., eds. (2024). Evidence-based approaches in aging and public health. Lausanne: Frontiers Media SA. doi: 10.3389/978-2-8325-4780-9
  2. Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Kabir, R., Al Hamad, H. (2024) Editorial: Evidence-based approaches in Aging and Public Health, Frontier in Public Health 12 2024 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1391432