BU Research Blog

July 24, 2015

New BU Research Methods paper

Knowledge Transfer, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday the journal Health Prospect published another of our research methods papers. This latest paper on cross-national comparative research has been written by five sociologists from Northern Europe and North America: Ray De Vries (University of Michigan USA & Hogeschool Zuyd, Maastricht University, the Netherlands), Cecilia Benoit (University of Victoria, Canada), Jane Sandall (King’s College London), Ivy Bourgeault (University of Ottawa, Canada), Sirpa Wrede (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Edwin van Teijlingen (Bournemouth University). We have been working together on cross-cultural and cross-national issues in maternity care and midwifery since the mid-1990s. Our collaborative research led to the edited volume Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe (Routledge, 2001). The book was short-listed for the British Sociological Association’s (BSA) Medical Sociology Book Prize in 2004.

The paper in Health Prospect is the latest in a series of papers addressing issues around the method of doing cross-national research. We highlight some of the specific contributions the discipline of sociology can make to cross-national comparative research in the public health field. Sociologists call attention to often unnoticed social and cultural factors that influence the way national reproductive health care systems are created and operated. The paper is published in an Open Access journal so it is easily and freely available to anybody across the globe.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

van Teijlingen, E., Benoit, C., Bourgeault, I., DeVries, R., Sandall, J., Wrede, S. (2015) Learning from health care in other countries: the prospect of comparative research, Health Prospect 14(1): 8-12. info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/13036/10525

July 23, 2015

UK Nepali community research dissemination event

Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

BU and UKNFS jointly presented some of the key findings of their study into the UK’s Nepali community. The meeting (22 July) in the EBC was attended by local representatives of the NHS, the CCG and Healthwatch Dorset. BU Prof. Vanora Hundley, Deputy Dean for Research (FHSS), who herself has published several academic paper on Nepal or English-language academic journals in Nepal, welcomed the audience. She highlighted how the research fitted into the wider health and soial care research portfolio of the Faculty.

BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen’s presentation highlighted the issues of access the health and social services in growing Nepali community in the UK. The reports highlights health and lifestyle issues, help-seeking behaviour and the influence of culture on health-related decision making. He mentioned barriers such as language and knowledge about services (or lack thereof). The findings of this study relate to previous studies in the field of ethnic minority communities int he UK. Mr. Alan Mercel-Sanca, Chairperson of the UK Nepal Friendship Society thanked the key researchers Dr. Bibha Simkhada (BU VIsiting Faculty) and Dr. Rajeeb Kumar Sah for conducting this mixed-methods research to such a high standard. He also thanked the Big Lottery Fund for making this ground-breaking piece of work possible, and the NHS England Equality and Health Inequalities team for their interest in final report and advice on the research.

The Report offers a unique opportunity for local health crae providers and commissioners to improve their understanding of this particular ethnic minority group. In the long run the report may lead to more effectively service delivery, especially in terms of health and social services that are sensitive to the needs of the Nepali community. Moreover, the report’s findings have direct relevance to other South Asian and broader Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) communities in the UK.

Finally, the audience heard how the report has been widely reported among the Nepali-language media to the Nepali community in the UK as well as in Nepal. This include coverage by the BBC World Service in Nepali, who interviewed Dr. Bibha Simkhada about the study.

The report is available online here!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

July 4, 2015

Paper published based on prestigious scholarship

Awarded & submitted bids, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

BU academics Ms. Lesley Milne, Prof. Vanora Hundley and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in collaboration with BU Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University) and Ms. Jillian Ireland (Community midwife NHS Poole) published there latest paper yesterday in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. The paper ‘Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: a qualitative study’ originated from research conducted in small maternity hospitals in Nepal.

The project was funded in 2013 through the first ever WellBeing of Women-Royal College of Midwives International Fellowship Award. This Fellowship was the first of its kind. It was established to enable midwives to further develop research interests in midwifery, maternity services, pregnancy, childbirth and women’s health from an international perspective.

The Scholarship competition was open to RCM midwives undertaking research in the UK or abroad which would address Millennium Development Goals 4 (Reduce Child Mortality) and 5 (Improve Maternal Health). Lesley Milne in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Heealth (CMMPH) was the first and very worthy recipient of this award.

Based on the fieldwork we published our paper in BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth an Open Access journal. The paper highlights that Nepal has made significant progress with regard to reducing the maternal mortality ratio but a major challenge remains the under-utilisation of skilled birth attendants. We found other studies had explored women’s views of the barriers to facility birth; however the voices of staff who offer services have not been studied in detail. This research explored the views of staff as to the key reasons why pregnant women do not give birth in a maternity-care facility when they exist.

This study highlights a multitude of barriers, not all of the same importance or occuring at the same time in the pregnancy journey. It is clear that staff are aware of many of the barriers for women in reaching the facility to give birth, and these fit with previous literature of women’s views. However, staff had limited insight into barriers occuring within the facility itself and were more likely to suggest that this was a problem for other institutions and not theirs.

Edwin van Teijlingen, Lesley Milne & Vanora Hundley

CMMPH

@EvanTeijlingen / @VanoraHundley

Reference:

Lesley Milne, Edwin van Teijlingen, Vanora Hundley, Padam Simkhada and Jillian Ireland, Staff perspectives of barriers to women accessing birthing services in Nepal: a qualitative study, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 2015, 15:142 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2393/15/142

June 12, 2015

New BU authored paper in latest issue of Journal of Asian Midwives

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

The latest issue of the Journal of Asian Midwives includes an article Twinning in Nepal: the Royal College of Midwives UK and the Midwifery Society of Nepal working in partnership by BU Visiting Faculty and NHS Poole midwife Jillian Ireland, co-authored by Joy Kemp (RCM Global Professional Advisor) and BU Professor Edwin van Teijlingen.

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) in the UK has twinned with the Midwifery Society of Nepal (MIDSON) to help strengthen the latter, through its Global Midwifery Twinning Project (GMTP). The GMTP aims to strengthen midwifery and develop leadership, advocacy, and campaigning skills both at the level of the association and at the individual midwife level. Reciprocity is an important aspect of twinning as the RCM also hopes to strengthen midwifery in the UK through greater engagement of its members and a raised profile of global maternal and new-born health. This paper describes the importance of collaboration between established national midwifery organisations and newly established ones. It includes a case study outlining the experience of a UK midwifery volunteer in Nepal. The paper ends with some thoughts on the effects of the GMTP project on midwifery in Nepal.

This paper is part of a larger body of research work conducted by the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health in Nepal.

Reference:

Ireland, J, van Teijlingen, E, & Kemp, J. (2015) Twinning in Nepal: the Royal College of Midwives UK and the Midwifery Society of Nepal working in partnership. Journal of Asian Midwives. 2(1):26–33.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

May 10, 2015

Paper by BU academics used as example in Dutch university newsletter

Publishing, Research Integritiy Edwin van Teijlingen

The March 2015 newsletter of the Dutch University of Groningen’s School for Behavioural & Cognitive Neurosciences dedicated two pages to the question: ‘How to pick the right journal?’ The author of the English-language newsletter contribution, Liwen Zhang, offer its readers a brief introduction on journal selection for a scientific manuscript. The newsletter piece is based on two papers which both share their submission stories and suggestions of journal selection. We were pleased to see that one of these two papers is by two Bournemouth University professors: Hundley and van Teijlingen. Their paper which gives advice on one specific aspect of academic publishing is called ‘Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper’ [1]. It was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing in 2002.

Reference:

vanTeijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2002) Getting your paper to the right journal: a case study of an academic paper, Journal of Advanced Nursing 37(6): 506-511.

April 29, 2015

New paper by Dr. Mastoureh Fathi

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Mastoureh Fathi for her latest paper: “I Make Here My Soil. I Make Here My Country” in Political Psychology.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

April 26, 2015

We regret to inform you ….

PG research, Publishing, Research Integritiy, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

It is always disappointing for an academic author to receive a rejection letter. Today I received yet another one from Midwifery (published by Elsevier). Sometimes I think academic publishing in good journal is not getting any easier over time. Neither does the experience of having over two hundred peer-reviewed academic papers make a rejection easier to deal with. This was my third paper in a row that got rejected by Midwifery. All three papers were rejected on resubmission, so a lot of extra work had gone into these papers after the initial peer review and the editor’s feedback. These three papers where led by three different postgraduate students (Sharma, Baral & Burton) as first authors, and in each case co-authored by myself and different BU academics and/or from other universities.

Midwifery is the journal in which I have published more papers than any other journal (see top blue piece of pie in ‘Documents by source’) as reported on SCOPUS today (26 April 2015). Moreover, I am co-author of one of the top five most downloaded papers in Midwifery for 2014 (see recent BU Research Blog), and this paper is also the most cited Midwifery paper since 2010! Still I manage to have three papers rejected in a row.

What is does show to me is that the journal’s peer review system is robust (i.e. blind and impartial) because I am also a member of Midwifery’s editorial committee. I think it is back to the drawing board and discuss with each set of authors what the next step should be for our papers. To be fair we had a paper published already this year in Midwifery, namely: 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.

As an editorial board we try continuously to maintain a high quality of papers to be published in our journal, and we would like to encourage potential authors to keep submitting their papers to Midwifery.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

April 26, 2015

Major earthquake in Nepal: Help needed

Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday’s earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter Scale, killed thousands of people. It is now 9 AM on Sunday morning and just had a report from friends in Nepal about a major after shock whilst the number of reported deaths is increasing by the hour. The number of causalities in rural areas will only become known over the next few weeks, because of the remoteness of some of the affected areas and the damage to infrastructure (roads, power cables, telephone, and internet links). We know from previous disasters in low-income countries like Nepal that help will be slower to reach rural areas.

The Government of Nepal has asked for international aid and the first aid arrived yesterday from neighbouring India. Yesterday the United States has made one million US$ available for the most immediate aid according to USAID, whilst the Belgian government activated its so-called B-Fast team (Belgian First Aid & Support Team). Like many countries, the UK has offered support. These big relief efforts are vital, especially for the immediate support in finding people under the rubble, and bringing in clean water, blankets, food, medicine and other supplies.

Only last month we published an editorial arguing that Nepal needs a greater focus on health protection to tackle emerging public health hazards.¹ In this editorial we observed that “whilst Nepal has made some head way in disaster planning, much of this seems to be focused mainly around earthquake disaster planning only.” The coming weeks and months we teach us to what extent this earthquake disaster management has been effective.

Researchers at BU have been working in Nepal for over ten years and in that period, have come to know many people and made lots of friends. We are worried about those we know personally, friends across Nepal, especially in our field sites, former and current Green Tara Nepal staff, the shop keepers next door to the Green Tara office, former and current students, and so on. Like so many people our first reaction was that we need to do something, starting with collecting money for the people of Nepal. We have decided that unlike a general appeal for help, like many friends of Nepal will set up over the next few days across the globe, we would stick to what we are good at: (a) improving maternity care in rural Nepal; and (b) stimulating health promotion. The former because women will continue to become pregnant and babies will continue to be born, the latter because the risk is that any disaster relief will focus on the here and now. Moreover, we want our disaster relief to be based on the same principles as outlined in Table 1 as the rest of our work.²

Table 1: Underlying philosophy of the Green Tara programme

The desired intervention or programme needs to be:

Community-based.
Culturally appropriate.
Women-centred, including working with those affecting women’s access to improved health (e.g. mothers in law, husbands).
Small-scale.
Sustainable.
Making best use of existing resources, both from the government and others in the locality.
Low cost.
Involve stakeholders at all stages to increase ownership and maximise chances of sustainability.

Donations can be made to Green Tara Trust (London) through the official donation web page:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/donate/makeDonationForCharityDisplay.action?charityId=1008396

This money will be used to implement sustainable low-cost, health intervention projects, working in close collaboration with local communities. There need to be projects on the ground now which are focusing immediately on the long-term preventative approach.

Please give generously!

Karunamati (Green Tara Trust, UK)

Padma Dharini (Green Tara Trust, UK)

Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University & Green Tara Nepal)

Edwin van Teijlingen (Bournemouth University, UK)

References:

Simkhada, P., Lee, A., van Teijlingen, E., Karki, P., Neupane C.H. (2015) Need and importance of health protection training in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology (editorial) 5(1): 441-443.
van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Stephen, J., Simkhada, B., Woodes Rogers, S., Sharma, S. (2012) Making the best use of all resources: developing a health promotion intervention in rural Nepal. Health Renaissance 10(3): 229-235.

April 5, 2015

Invited talk Easter Monday

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

On 6th April, Easter Monday, professor Edwin van Teijlingen will present the process and selected findings of research capacity building work conducted in Nepal. The invited lecture at Social Science Baha in Kathmandu was originally planned for early January, but unfortunately had to be cancelled at the last moment due to a national strike in Nepal.

PARI (Partnership on improving Access to Research Literature for Higher Education Institutions in Nepal) refers to a project to support and enhance health research in Nepal; a partnership between Tribhuvan University, three UK universities (including Bournemouth University), and the Development Resource Centre (Nepal). The British Council and DFID (UK) funded PARI to help build research capacity over a three-year period.

Nepal has limited capacity in health research, which restricts ability to implement evidence-based health care. PARI aimed to move university lecturers away from textbook teaching and make them more critical of the academic literature available on the Internet.

PARI workshops delivered to Nepal universities introduce the foundations of evidence-based practice and outline key electronic databases of health care and health service literature available to Nepalese academics. These workshops were informed by: (1) a curriculum review of all health-related courses at the major universities in Nepal; and (2) a needs assessment with lecturers, librarians and students of the major universities.

Key message included that We need to move away from textbook teaching in health care and teach health-care discipline students how to find the most appropriate evidence-based treatment for each patient.

The PARI team:

Ram Sharan Pathak,Tribhuvan University,Nepal

Padam Simkhada, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

Bhimsen Devkota, Development ResourceCentre,Nepal

Edwin van Teijlingen,Bournemouth University,UK

Julie Bruce,University of Warwick, UK

Pramod Regmi, Development Resource Centre, Nepal

Amudha Poobalan, University of Aberdeen, UK

Trilochan Pokharel, Nepal Administrative Staff College, Kathmandu Nepal

The work has resulted in two academic publications:

Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S., 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. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/11375
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Pokharel, T., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S. (2013) Research Methods Coverage in Medical & Health Science Curricula in Nepal, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 3(3): 253-258. www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/9185

April 4, 2015

New paper on obesity research

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

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)

April 2, 2015

Publishing an academic book in a low-income country

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Earlier this year our book ‘The Dynamics of Health in Nepal’ was published by Himal Books for Social Science Baha in Kathmandu.¹It is an edited collection covering a range of current health topics in Nepal, including issues such as maternal health, HIV/AIDS, sexual health, road traffic accidents, non-communicable diseases and the role of the media and migration.

One of us had published several books, with for example international publishers such as Elsevier, Routledge (part of Taylor Francis) and Oxford University Press.^2-4All editors authors are UK PhD graduates from the universities of Aberdeen (van Teijlingen), Southampton (Simkhada) and Sheffield (Wasti) respectively. All three of us were based in the UK at the time of conception of the book. Padam Simkhada was Senior Lecturer in International Health at the University of Sheffield, Edwin van Teijlingen still is professor at Bournemouth University and Sharada Prasad Wasti was a PhD student at ScHARR (University of Sheffield). So it made sense to talk to publishers in the UK, which is what we did. However, it rapidly became clear that we could get a deal for an expensive hardback book, a book which would sell way above what the average academic in Nepal could afford. After some soul searching we decided to look into getting the book published in Nepal.

One of the advantages of publishing Nepal is the same most outsourcing to low income-countries, namely it keeps the production costs down. Rather than increasing our profit margins by keeping the low production costs, as it the typical case in the global market, we used this to keep the retail price low. The book retails for 800NR (about £5.50) in Nepal which means it is affordable to academics and postgraduate students in Nepal. Similar books from international publishers sell for at least £20!

We had some trepidation about the potentially quality of the book before we signed the contract with Social Science Baha. These low expectations were based on the quality of printed text books we had seen for sale on small stalls outside the Kittipur Campus of Tribhuvan University. One of these shoddy looking books was based on lecturers given by our Nepalese colleague Prof. Dr. Bhimsen Devkota. When we passed one of these stalls many years ago he pointed at a particular book and said: “See that book, a student who had attended my lectures two years in a row, copied all I said, and the materials I handed out, all of it word for word. That student then got it published as a book.”

However, our expectations were wrong. From the outset the publishing process was impressive. Social Science Baha employed a very professional proof-reader/copy-editor who picked up a lot of minor style and language issues even after we had most of the chapters professionally proof-read in the UK. The classic example of the thoroughness of his checking was the name of one for the chapter contributors ‘Sally Woodes Rogers’, he came back to us and said, “But her name on the web pages of the University of Aberdeen is ‘Sarah’ not ‘Sally’, are you sure?” At which point we had to assure him that ‘Sarah’ was her correct birth name but that she wanted herself to be known as ‘Sally’.

The final version of our book looks very good. The cover is beautifully printed; the font, chapter lay-out and overall style are of a very high quality. Our book has the feel of a typical academic book published in Europe or North America. There is really nothing about it that says this book is published in a low-income country.

The book has been well received at its launch in Kathmandu in January 2015. The first published book review was also very complementary.⁵ Last but not least, having produced a great looking book, for us the final feel-good factor is that we agreed to donate all profits from the sale of the book to the charity Green Tara Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Prof. Padam Simkhada

Dr. Sharada P. Wasti

References:

Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.(eds.) (2015)The Dynamics of Health in Nepal,Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha&Himal Books
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.
Taylor R., Smith, B.,Teijlingen van, E. (eds.) (2003) Health & Illness in the Community: an Oxford Core Text, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alder, B. Abraham, C., van Teijlingen, E., Porter, M. (eds.) (2009) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (third edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier Science.
Pradhan S. (2015) Book review The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Public Health Perspective 5(2) on line journal: http://www.phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=943

March 19, 2015

Policy brief on Obesity

Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Today my colleagues at the University of Aberdeen’s Health Economics Research Unit (HERU) published their latest HERU Policy Brief on ‘Gaining pounds by losing pounds: research finds financial incentives could help reduce obesity’. The policy brief is now available on line. These policy briefs are concise summaries of the findings of research projects, presented with a focus on policy implications. Linking research findings to possible policy improvements increase the chance that our research has an impact on the wider society. Furthermore, that our research has an impact in REF terms.

This latest policy brief ‘Gaining pounds by losing pounds: research finds financial incentives could help reduce obesity’ is part of a larger project called PROGRESS (Prevent Obesity GRowing Economic Synthesis Study), funded by the National Preventative Research Initiative (NPRI) and the Universities of Aberdeen and Melbourne. The project started when I was still at the University of Aberdeen, before I came down to Bournemouth more than five years ago now. Our research highlights that despite evidence that dietary interventions are the most effective way to lose weight, respondents preferred lifestyle interventions involving physical activity. Also that behaviour-change support improves effectiveness of interventions, but its value to participants was limited. A general preference to maintain current lifestyles, together with the sensitivity of take-up to financial costs, suggests financial incentives could be used to help maximise up-take of healthy lifestyle interventions. Finally, men required more compensation to take up healthier lifestyles.

Full details on methods and results are available in the health economics paper due to be published later this year, currently ‘published ahead of print’ (Ryan et al. 2014).

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

Reference:

Ryan, M., Yi, D., Avenell, A., Douglas, F., Aucott, L., van Teijlingen, E. & Vale, L. (2014) Gaining pounds by losing pounds: preferences for lifestyle interventions to reduce obesity, Health Economics, Policy & Law, [Epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1017/s1744133114000413.

March 18, 2015

MIDWIFERY: Top five most down-loaded articles for 2014

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

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

February 28, 2015

Two BU authored chapters in new book on childbirth

Publishing, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

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

February 25, 2015

Working towards research impact in Nepal

Knowledge Transfer, Research assessment Edwin van Teijlingen

BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health has a long history of working Nepal. Last month (January 7^th) 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:

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
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
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.
Hartwell, H., van Teijlingen, E., Parker, J. (2013) Nutrition; Effects of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Nutrition & Food Science 43 (1): 74-77.
Research Councils UK (2015) RCUK Review of Pathways to Impact: Summary http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/documents/PtoIExecSummary.pdf

February 12, 2015

The editor is a !@#!

Publishing, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy Edwin van Teijlingen

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

February 7, 2015

Recent methods papers at BU

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

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:

Mayoh, J., Onwuegbuzie, A.J. (2015) Toward a Conceptualization of Mixed Methods Phenomenological Research, Journal of Mixed Methods Research 9(1): 91-107.
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.
MacKenzie Bryers, H., van Teijlingen, E. Pitchforth, E. (2014) Advocating mixed-methods approaches in health research, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(5): 417-422.
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.

January 30, 2015

New paper published on spirituality and midwifery

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

BU’s Dr. Jenny Hall and her New Zealand colleague Susan Crowther published an interesting discussion paper on ‘Spirituality and spiritual care in and around childbirth’ in the journal Women and Birth. This discussion paper brings to the surface what is meant by spiritual care and spiritual experiences, to increase awareness about spirituality in childbirth and midwifery and move beyond the constraints of structured defined protocols.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

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New BU authored paper in latest issue of Journal of Asian Midwives

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Two BU authored chapters in new book on childbirth

The editor is a !@#!

New paper published on spirituality and midwifery

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