Tagged / Health

New paper on obesity research

BU research, Publishing

Colleagues associated with the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) and the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health (all based at the University of Aberdeen), the Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health Professional Research Unit (University of Stirling), the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research & Policy (SCPHRP) based at the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) at Bournemouth University published their latest paper on obesity research.  The paper ‘A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical obesity interventions in men’ is published in the journal: Obesity Research & Clinical Practice.  This systematic review summarises the literature reporting the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical weight-management interventions for men. Studies were quality assessed against a checklist for appraising decision modelling studies.  This research is part of the larger ROMEO study.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

 

Reference:

Boyers, D., Avenell, A., Stewart, F., Robertson, C., Archibald, D., Douglas, F., Hoddinott, P., van Teijlingen, E., A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of non-surgical obesity interventions in men, Obesity Research & Clinical Practice (online first)

MIDWIFERY: Top five most down-loaded articles for 2014

BU research, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

 Today academic publisher Elsevier sent round an email with the top five most downloaded articles from the international journal Midwifery.

We were pleased to see that the fifth paper on that list is a BU paper jointly written with Dr. Helen Bryers, Consultant Midwife in Scotland. 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Student-midwife-run postnatal clinic: FUSION example

BU research, Fusion, PG research, Publishing, Uncategorized

FHSS staff and students published their latest article ‘Would a student midwife run postnatal clinic make a valuable addition to midwifery education in the UK? — A systematic review’ now out on line in Nurse Education Today 35 : 480-486.   The paper is written by Wendy Marsh, Dana M. Colbourne, Susan Way & Vanora Hundley.

We are pleased to inform you that the final version of your article with full bibliographic details is now available online.  The publishers are providing the following personal article link, which will provide free access to this article, and is valid for 50 days, until April 17, 2015:  http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1QcG5xHa50bEa

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Two BU authored chapters in new book on childbirth

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, student research, Uncategorized

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

Working towards research impact in Nepal

BU research, Featured academics, Knowledge Transfer, Research assessment, Research news

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

 

North Wales Brain Injury Service – Independence in cooking tasks

Knowledge Exchange

This competition aims to promote independence in cooking tasks , to identify and develop innovative solutions that maximise the benefits for brain injury service users’ and benefits for public services.

On Thursday 26th February 2015 the competition will launch to seek and develop innovative solutions that will promote independence in cooking activities for North Wales Brain Injury Service users rather than current practice which involves direct one to one prompting from therapists and support workers. 

Organisations will be invited to compete for a share of a total £160,000 fund for the further development and commercialisation of innovative technologies, processes and business models.

The competition will open on 26th February 2015 and close on 20 April 2015. There will  be a formal launch event on Monday 23rd March 2015 in Wrexham.   

Once the competition is open, interested parties will be able to get further information, register their interest and book a place at the briefing event on 23rd March 2015 via the following email address;  

SBRI.NWBIS@wales.nhs.uk

 For further details click here.

The editor is a *!@#*!

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy

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

Recent methods papers at BU

BU research, Publishing, Uncategorized

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.

 

BU research, Publishing, Uncategorized

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

 

 

 

Most cited article in MIDWIFERY

BU research, Featured academics, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized

The scientific paper ‘Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care’ written by Dr. Helen MacKenzie Bryers (NHS Highland) and BU Professor of Reproductive Health Research is now listed on the website of the international journal Midwifery  as its top most cited paper since 2010 (1).   Midwifery, published by Elsevier, is one of the leading global journals in the field of midwifery and maternity care.

The paper provides a critical analysis of the risk concept, its development in modern society in general and UK maternity services in particular. Through the associated theory, the authors explore the origins of the current preoccupation with risk.  Using Pickstone’s historical phases of modern health care, the paper explores the way maternity services changed from a social to a medical model over the twentieth century and suggests that the risk agenda was part of this process.

‘Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models’ has been cited 40 times in SCOPUS, measured today Jan. 25th 2015.   In Google Scholar the citation rate is even higher  and stands at 69.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

Reference

  1. MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26(5): 488-496.

Evaluation mixed-methods research grant awarded to FHSS team

BU research, PG research, Research news

Dr. Janet Scammell in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (FHSS) is leading on a new research project evaluating the impact of a new integrated respiratory service in Dorset.  The £20,000 mixed-methods research project is funded by the Wessex Academic Health Science Network on behalf of the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group.  Janet Scammell is leading a research team in BU’s new Faculty of Health and Social Sciences comprising Desi Tait, Ashley Spriggs, Martin Hind, Caroline Belchamber and Edwin van Teijlingen.

The Dorset Adult Integrated Respiratory Service (DAIRS) is a new service that has been set up early 2014 to provide support and care for people with respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchiectasis and pulmonary fibrosis.  The service aims to reduce the number of people who need admission to hospital and help individuals to feel more in control of their condition.  BU has been asked to evaluate early uptake and impact of the DAIRS running in Poole, Bournemouth and Dorchester.

 

Further information about this exciting project is available from:   Dr. Janet Scammell, Associate Professor and Professional Lead for Adult and Children & Young People’s Nursing

Telephone: 01202 962751

Email: jscammell@bournemouth.ac.uk