Tagged / BU research

Two BU authored chapters in new book on childbirth

BU Ph.D. student and Consultant Midwife Kathryn Gutteridge and Hannah Dahlen Associate Professor of Midwifery at the University of Western Sydney contributed a chapter to the book ‘The Roar behind the Silence: Why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care’.  Kathryn Gutteridge and Hannah Dahlen wrote under the title ‘Stop the fear and embrace birth’.  BU’s Dr. Jenny Hall also wrote a chapter called ‘Spirituality, compassion and maternity care’.

The  volume edited by Sheena Byrom and Soo Downe was published this week by Pinter & Martin (London).   I received my copy of the book yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to look at it until today.  The Roar Behind the Silence is both a practical and inspirational book, which likely to be of interest to people working in maternity care (midwives, doctors, managers), local and regional maternity-care policy-makers as well as politicians and funders and, of course, to many pregnant women and maternity-care pressure groups.  The book highlights examples of good practice, and offers practical tools for making change happen, advice on how to use evidence and real-life stories.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships – Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK

The Enterprise Fellowships are designed to enable an individual to advance the commercialisation of existing research results or technological developments and are tenable for a period of one year.  The Fellowships enable the holder to concentrate on developing the commercial potential of their research, whilst also receiving formal training in relevant business skills.

Award max: Unspecified  
Closing date: 27/04/2015

Industry Fellowships – Royal Society, UK

This scheme is for academic scientists who want to work on a collaborative project with industry and for scientists in industry who want to work on a collaborative project with an academic organisation.

The scheme provides a basic salary for the researcher and a contribution towards research costs.

Award max: Basic salary & research expenses up to £2000/year
Closing Date: 26/03/2015

Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme – BBSRC

Participants enter as teams and develop a business plan for a company based on a hypothetical but plausible idea based on real markets over the course of a three day residential workshop. The workshop encompasses presentations and mentoring sessions from leading figures in industry and culminates in the presentation of the business plans to a panel of ‘equity investors’ drawn from industry and academia. Up to three teams for each workshop are selected to progress to the final in London.

Award max: Prize fund of £5000, including first prize of £2,500, trip to USA, invite to BIA Gala Dinner
Closing Date: 29/05/2015

Brian Mercer Award for Innovation – Royal Society

This scheme is for scientists who wish to develop an already proven concept or prototype into a near-market product ready for commercial exploitation. The scheme covers natural sciences, excluding medical devices.

Award max: £250,000
Closing date: 23/04/2015

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your  RKEO Funding Development Officer

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

Working towards research impact in Nepal

BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health has a long history of working Nepal.  Last month (January 7th) BU’s partner Green Tara Nepal led the dissemination of the findings of our evaluation of key health promotion initiatives in Nepal. The evaluation was conducted in collaboration with the Government of Nepal, Green Tara Trust, a UK-based charity, several national and international non-governmental organisations and three UK universities, namely Liverpool John Moores University, Bournemouth University and the University of Sheffield. The evaluation identified key government, bilateral, UN agencies national and international non-governmental organisations working in health promotion in Nepal. Their health promotion activities and approaches were documented and gaps were identified.

As a follow up to both the evaluation and dissemination event we were asked by the journal Public Health Perspectives to write an editorial on our work.1  Our editorial ‘Health Promotion: A review of policies and practices in Nepal’ highlights the research we conducted and the state of health promotion we uncovered.  We also used our editorial to explain the UK notion of impact as formalised in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF).  To explain to our non-academic readers the REF is a nation-wide system to assess the quality academic research in all academic disciplines. 2-4  One key part of the REF is measuring the ‘impact’ that a UK university has on society and/or the economy.  This REF requires UK universities to write and submit a number of case studies that show societal impact.5   The dissemination of the health promotion research in Nepal is the beginning of a REF impact case study for Bournemouth University and our UK partner Liverpool John Moores University.  The editorial is a further stepping stone in the dissemination especially since it was co-authored between UK academics, health promotion practitioners as well as a member of the Constitutional Assembly (the Nepali equivalent of Parliament).   Working with policy-makers at an early stage increases the chances of our research being incorporated in national policy-making in Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Sharma, A, Tuladhar, G., Dhungel, A., Padmadharini, van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2015) Health Promotion: A review of policies and practices in Nepal, Public Health Perpective 5(2): http://phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=941#.VO4Qvn9tXkd
  2. Parker, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2012) The Research Excellence Framework (REF): Assessing the impact of Social Work research on society, Practice: Social Work in Action 24(1): 41-52.  http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/20511/2/REF%20paper%20JPEvT.pdf
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Alexander, J., Marchant, S. (2011) The Research Excellence Framework (REF): new developments to assess research in higher education institutions and its impact on society. MIDIRS 21 (3): 298-301.
  4. Hartwell, H., van Teijlingen, E., Parker, J. (2013) Nutrition; Effects of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Nutrition & Food Science 43 (1): 74-77.
  5. Research Councils UK (2015)  RCUK Review of Pathways to Impact: Summary http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/documents/PtoIExecSummary.pdf

 

The editor is a *!@#*!

Editors of academic journals are regularly cursed by academics worldwide.  At universities across the globe we can regularly hear expression such as “Who does the editor think he is rejecting my paper?” or “Why does it have to take six months (or more) to find out my paper is rejected?” or “Why does the editor not understand how good/novel/innovative/… our paper is?  These kinds of expression of dismay may or may not be accompanied by an expletive.  Being both busy editors and well published authors we thought timely to put pen to paper and explain the work (role and limitations) of the typical editor of an international academic journal.

First, being an editor is not all bad, and is actually a privilege. It is an opportunity to nurture new authors, be at the forefront of your discipline and it is part of being a ‘serious’ scholar. However, we have been at the receiving end of the wrath of authors dissatisfied with something we did or didn’t do as an editor AND we have been disappointed as authors with what we perceived to be, poor editorial decisions!

We wrote a short outline of the proposed paper and send it to the editor of Women and Birth.  The idea was readily accepted and resulted in a paper published this week in the scientific journal.

The paper includes little snippets of insight and advice to authors.  For example, a reminder that the average editor of an academic journalist an unpaid volunteer, usually a full-time lecturer and/or researcher with a busy day job, who does most of her editorial work on Sunday morning when the kids are still in bed or Tuesday night after the second-year marking has been completed. We hope that knowledge of the editors’ role will help authors (a) understand the submission process better; and (b) be a little bit more patience with the editors.  And, last but not least, we hope our article helps the development of editors of the future.

 

Jenny Hall, Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) The Journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth (accepted). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871519215000104

Open Access research: BURO and benchmarking

BURO, our institutional repository, shares its content with IRUS-UK, a national aggregation service, which contains details of all content downloaded from UK participating Institutional Repositories. The aim is to provide consistent and comprehensive statistics, presenting opportunities for benchmarking at a national level. This also allows us to see where BURO sits amongst our participating peers in Jisc Band 5b.

The table below is for September 2014-January 2015 downloads for all item types in participating Jisc Band 5b institutions

The table below is for January 2015 downloads for articles in participating Jisc Band 5b institutions

The table below is for January 2015 downloads for all item types in BURO

The most downloaded peer reviewed article in January 2015 was:

Hough, B. and Spowart-Taylor, A., 2001. The Doctrine of Consideration: Dead or Alive in English Employment Contracts? Journal of Contract Law, 17 (3), pp. 193-211. = 346 downloads

Most downloaded thesis in January 2015

Franklin, I., 2009. Folkways and airwaves: oral history, community and vernacular radio. Doctorate Thesis (Doctorate). Bournemouth University. = 522 downloads

Ensuring your research is open access

Please do keep adding your full-text research outputs to BURO via BRIAN, both green and gold. To be eligible for submission to the next REF exercise all journal papers and conference proceedings will have to be made freely available in an institutional or subject repository (such as BURO) upon acceptance (subject to publisher’s embargo periods). See the blog post here on how to add outputs to BRIAN.

Any queries please contact the BURO team: BURO@bournemouth.ac.uk

Recent methods papers at BU

In the past six weeks we saw the publication of three methods papers by BU academics.     BU’s Joanne Mayoh and her colleague Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie in the USA published a paper on mixed-methods approaches in phenomenology.1  They argue that phenomenological research methods work extremely well as a component of mixed-methods research approaches. The purpose of this article is twofold, they provide: (1) a philosophical justification for using what they label mixed-methods phenomenological research (MMPR); and (2) examples of MMPR in practice to underline a number of potential models for MMPR that can practically be used in future research.

In the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences Catherine Angell and Jane Hunt with Professor Emerita Jo Alexander offer methodological insights into the ‘draw and write’ research method. 2   Their literature review identified that the method has been used inconsistently and found that there are issues for researchers in relation to interpretation of creative work and analysis of data. As a result of this, an improvement on this method, entitled ‘draw, write and tell’, was developed in an attempt to provide a more child-orientated and consistent approach to data collection, interpretation and analysis. This article identifies the issues relating to ‘draw and write’ and describes the development and application of ‘draw, write and tell’ as a case study, noting its limitations and benefits.

Finally, BU Visiting Faculty Emma Pitchforth and CMMPH’s Edwin van Teijlingen together with Consultant Midwife Helen MacKenzie Bryers published a paper advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research.3  This paper outlines the different paradigms or philosophies underlying quantitative and qualitative methods and some of the on-going debates about mixed-methods. The paper further highlights a number of practical issues, such as: (1) the particular mix and order of quantitative and qualitative methods; (2) the way of integrating methods from different philosophical stance; and (3) how to synthesise mixed-methods findings.   This paper is accompanied by an editorial in  Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. 4

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

 

References:

  1.  Mayoh, J., Onwuegbuzie, A.J.  (2015) Toward a Conceptualization of Mixed Methods Phenomenological Research, Journal of Mixed Methods Research 9(1): 91-107.
  2. Angell, C., Alexander, J., Hunt, J.A.  (2015) ‘Draw, write and tell’: A literature review and methodological development on the ‘draw and write’ research method.  Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13(1): 17-28.
  3. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. Pitchforth, E. (2014) Advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 417-422.
  4. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Wasti, S.P., Sathian, B. (2014) Mixed-methods approaches in health research in Nepal (editorial) Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 415-416.

 

Tourism, a global industry, brings with it a number of public health problems, one of which is the spread of sexually transmitted infections transmitted between travellers and hosts.
Previous studies have largely focused on sex workers and sex tourists. This latest paper ‘Nepalese Trekking Guides: A Quantitative Study of Sexual Health Knowledge And Sexual Behaviour’ published yesterday in the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences assesses sexual behaviour, knowledge and condom use among male trekking guides in Nepal. 

A self-administered questionnaire survey (n=324) was conducted using snowball sampling amongst men working as mountain trekking guides in Nepal. Most respondents (59%) had  initiated sex before the age of 18. Most (84 %) reported sexual relations with a woman other than their partner, 46% reported foreign partners, 43% had Nepalese partners, and 28% had concurrent foreign and Nepalese partners. Most (70 %) reported ever having sex with a foreign woman and two-thirds had had sexual intercourse with foreign women in the previous 12 months. Participants’ age, education status, age of first sex, smoking and drinking habits and English proficiency were significant predictors of having sex with foreign women.About 60% reported condom use during their most recent occasion of extra-martial sex. A similar proportion had used a condom during last sexual intercourse with a foreign woman. The likelihood of condom use was associated with a guide’s age, educational level, ethnicity, age of first sex and work experience. Most trekking guides reported sexual relations with foreign women as well as irregular use of condoms. Although sexual health knowledge about among trekking guides is high, some misconceptions still result in unsafe sex. Hence there is an urgent need to revise the existing training for trekking guides and implement appropriate health promotion programmes.

Reference:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Bhatta, P., Ingham, R., Stone, N. (2015) Sexual health knowledge and risky sexual behaviour of Nepalese trekking guides. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 1 (4): 35-42.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

 

31 publications by January 31st!

 

My contribution to the BU Research Blog this year started on 3-1-2015 under the heading First BU publication of 2015.  I soon discovered that with loads of journals publishing their first issue of the new year in early January and books being published early in the new year (rather than late in the previous one) the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences had quite a few new publications lined up.  It seems a nice idea to write another BU Research Blog under the title ’20/20′ referring in our case to twenty publications by January 20th with wordplay on the 20-20 perfection vision.  But before January 20th the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences had already more than 20 publications.

The plan changed to report 25 publications by January 25th.  This time the title in my head was ‘In the month 25-25 …’ a poor wordplay of the song ‘In the year 2525’.  In The Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus) was a hit in my youth (in the late Sixties by the US duo Denny Zager and Rick Evans).   Unfortunately, this plan was short-lived too as I was made aware of several publications by Faculty of Health & Social Sciences colleagues in the space of three days.

Hence the final attempt ’31 publications by January 31st!’ (published today 26th January) before I find out about further publications!

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

 

The list of 31 Faculty of Health & Social Sciences publication for early 2015, comprising 21 papers and ten book chapter:

  1. Hemingway, A., Norton, L &  Aarts, C. (2015) Principles of Lifeworld Led Public Health Practice in the UK and Sweden: Reducing Health Inequalities Nursing Research & Practice,  Vol. 2015  Article ID 124591, 4 pages
  2. Jonathan Williams and his colleagues at Cardiff University published: ‘Development of a computation biomechanical model for the investigation of infant head injury by shaking’ Medicine, Science and the Law,   http://msl.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/12/30/0025802414564495.abstract
  3. Bernardo G.L., Pacheco da Costa Proença R, Cristin M, Calvo, M., Fiates, G.M.R., Hartwell H. (2015),”Assessment of the healthy dietary diversity of a main meal in a self-service restaurant”, British Food Journal,  117(1): 286 – 301.
  4. Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Parker, J. (2015) Reflections on Social Work and Human Rights, SUHAKAM Malaysian Journal of Human Rights Journal, pp.19-30 (forthcoming)
  5.  Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Parker, J., Azman, A., Masu’d, F. (2015) Typologies of learning in international student placements, Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work & Development. Advanced access/online Doi: 10.1080/02185385.2014.1003393
  6. Ashencaen Crabtree, S. and Parker, J. (2015) Being male in female spaces: Perceptions of male students on masculinity on a qualifying course. Revista de Asistenţă Socială, anul XIII, 4/2014, pp. 7-26, www.swreview.ro
  7. Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Marahatta, S.B. Mental health services in Nepal: Is it too late? Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (accepted).
  8. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Winter, R.C., Fanning, C., Dhungel, A., Marahatta S.B. Why are so many Nepali women killing themselves? A review of key issues Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (accepted).
  9. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. Wasti, S.P., Sathian B., Mixed-methods approaches in health research in Nepal (Editorial) Nepal Journal of Epidemiology (accepted).
  10. Galvin, K., Todres L (2015) Dignity as honour-wound: An experiential and relational view Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice.
  11. 16.  Worswick, L., Little, C., Ryan, K., Carr, E. (2015),Interprofessional learning in primary care: An exploration of the service user experience leads to a new model for co-learning Nurse Education Today
  12. Murphy, J., Pulman, A., Jeffery, J., Worswick, L., Ford, G., 2015. Translating research into practice: Evaluation of an e-learning resource for health care professionals to provide nutrition advice and support for cancer survivors. Nurse Education Today, 35(1), 271-276.
  13. Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS (accepted).
  14. Rachel Arnold published from her PhD research: Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E.R., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2015) Understanding Afghan health care providers: A qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital, BJOG 122: 260-267.
  15. Angell, C., Alexander J, Hunt J (2015) ‘Draw, write and tell’: A literature review and methodological development on the ‘draw and write’ research method, Journal of Early Childhood Research 13(1): 17-28.
  16. Gyawali, B., Keeling, J., van Teijlingen, E., Dhakal. L., Aro, A.R. (2015) Cervical Cancer Screening: Ethical Consideration, Medicolegal & Bioethics 5 :1-6
  17. Grylka-Baeschlin, S., van Teijlingen, E.R., Stoll, K., Gross, M.M. (2015) Translation and validation of the German version of the Mother-Generated Index and its application during the postnatal period. Midwifery 31(1): 47–53.
  18. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. Pitchforth, E., Advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology (accepted).
  19. Hall, J., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. The Journal editor: friend or foe? Women & Birth (accepted).
  20. Marsh, W., Colbourne, D., Way, S., Hundley, V., 2014. Would a student run postnatal clinic make a valuable addition to midwifery education in the UK? A systematic review. Nurse Education Today. (In Press)
  21. Bevan A.L., Hartwell H, Hemingway, A., Rossana Pacheco da Costa Proença (2015) An exploration of the fruit and vegetable “foodscape” in a university setting for staff: A preliminary study British Food Journal, 117(1): 37-49.

 

Book chapters:

  1. Edwin van Teijlingen published a chapter on ‘Sociology of Midwifery’ in: Sociology for Midwives, Deery, R., Denny, E. & Letherby, G. (eds.) published by Polity Pres
  2. PhD student Sheetal Sharma is co-author of a book chapter called ‘Customs and believes surrounding newborn babies in rural areas’ published  The Dynamics of Health in Nepalet al. by Himal Books, Nepal.
  3. Benoit, C., Sandall, J., Benoit, C., Murray, S.F., van Teijlingen E., Wrede, S., & Declercq, G. New directions in global policy: maternal health. In: E. Kuhlmann, E., Bourgeault, I. (eds.) Palgrave International Handbook on Health Care Policy & Governance,  Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming 2015)
  4. Jenny Hall has a chapter forthcoming ‘Spirituality and compassion and maternity care’ in The Roar behind the silence: why kindness, compassion and respect matter in maternity care, S. Byrom & S. Downe (eds.) published by Pinter and Martin: http://www.pinterandmartin.com/the-roar-behind-the-silence.html?
  5. van Teijlingen, E, Simkhada, P., Wasti, P.P. (2015) Nepal is Changing: Modernisation and Diversity in Healthcare.  In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 1-15.
  6. Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) (2015) Socio-Cultural Aspects of HIV/AIDS. In: The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 47-62.
  7. Simkhada, B., Sharma, A., van Teijlingen, E., Silwal, R.C., Simkhada, P. (2015) Exploring Maternal Mortality Reduction. In: Wasti, S.P. et al. The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 95-121
  8. Devkota, B., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Exploring Rebel Health Services during the Maoist People’s War. In: Wasti, S.P. et al. (Eds.)  The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 122-130.
  9. Devkota, S., Maharjan, H.M., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Media and Health.  In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.)  The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 169-184.
  10. Parker, J. (2015) Single Shared Assessments in social work. In J.D. Wright (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edn, Elsevier, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.28105-1 .