01/04/10
Funded PhD studentships available
The Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences invites applications from suitably qualified students for a number of three-year full-time PhD studentships, starting in October 2010. The funding provided will cover the payment of tuition fees plus financial support of up to £15,000 per year.
The PhD studentships are offered for study in the following topics:
Evaluation of clinical and cost-effectiveness of Expert Patient Programme (EPP) for specific long-term conditions, including process evaluation and patients’ perspectives
- Lead supervisor: Professor Ann Bowling, Chair in Healthcare of Older Adults
- The increase in chronic illness as a leading cause of death, and the financial cost to the public sector, has led to the development of self-management programmes for patients in the NHS, following their initial development in the USA. The programmes are designed to enable patients to feel more empowered, to become involved in their healthcare decisions and to be ‘experts’ at managing their conditions. Most self-management theories and programmes have been built on social, cognitive, behavioural and self-efficacy theories to improve management of medication, symptoms, psychosocial areas, lifestyle changes, social support, goal setting and provision of information on how to access services. The longer term aims of the programmes are to contain healthcare costs and to improve the health and wellbeing of patients. This project offers an opportunity to work within a proposed evaluation of the EPP in relation to defined conditions, including, for example, stroke.
A critical study of the barriers to participation after stroke
- Lead supervisor: Dr Fiona Jones
- This PhD research will focus on the development of a conceptual model of participation after stroke and the development and validation of a new measure of barriers to participation. The project will aim to answer 4 questions:
- How do individuals view their participation after stroke – what do they perceive to be the barriers and restrictions?
- What are the objective barriers (such as societal, environmental) that influence participation in the longer term, post-stroke?
- How is participation conceptualised by different groups within the stroke population, including those ‘hard to reach’ groups such as minority ethnic groups, individuals without independent community mobility, individuals with communication impairments?
- Can we develop a specific measurement tool of barriers to participation post-stroke, that would include items that represent the experiences of ‘hard to reach’ groups?
Exploring multiple perspectives on multisystem teams
- Lead supervisor: Professor Fiona Ross
- Working in interprofessional teams is integral to healthcare delivery and considered an important part of providing high quality and efficient care. However, as care delivery becomes more complex and specialised, individual professionals may find themselves working with different teams and agencies in a variety of relationships. For example, a stroke care physiotherapist will be a member of a professional grouping as well as the multidisciplinary team. There is some evidence that factors such as accessibility to expertise, the size of the team and opportunities to build social as well as collegial relationships are valued by professionals particularly in meeting the needs of patients with complex conditions in primary and social care (Ross et al, 2009). However, more work is needed to identify the factors that support and incentivise professionals working with more than one team in diverse clinical relationships and across a pathway of care, and the impact these have on their team performance and the patient experience. The purpose of this study is to explore multiple perspectives on multi-team systems in the context of the stroke care pathway.
Black detainees and the use of Section 136 of the Mental Health Act: using detainee, police and professional discourse to improve practice
- Lead supervisor: Professor Mary Chambers
- Aims and objectives:
- To elicit black detainee, police and mental health professional accounts of a set of specific incidents of the use of Section 136 at a Mental Health NHS Trust Place of Safety
- To explore police, professional and detainee discourse on the use of Section 136 at a Mental Health NHS Trust Place of Safety
- To investigate, through the exploration of tensions and convergence between police, professional and detainee discourse, the potential for interprofessional learning on the appropriate use of Section 136 at a Mental Health NHS Trust Place of Safety.
- Background: Members of the supervision team collected demographic, assessment and referral data on 906 consecutive Section 136 detentions over a three year period, indicating that Black British/Black African-Caribbean people were significantly over-represented among detainees compared to local population (5.1% of local population compared to 17.2% of all Section 136 detentions). This indicates no change since previous research extending back nearly two decades, in spite of policy initiatives that have sought to address broader findings indicating that black people are far more likely than other ethnic groups to access mental health services through emergency, rather than planned admission.
The development of nursing ethics through the history of nursing practice
- Lead supervisor: Professor Paul Wainwright
- The Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences has an extensive archive of oral history interviews conducted with nurses who trained in London teaching hospitals over the past eighty years. This data reveals many interesting aspects of nursing practice and the experience of nursing over this period. This project will involve the study of nurses’ stories to develop an understanding of the way in which nursing ethics and nursing values are depicted in these oral history accounts.
Eligibility
Applicants should have at least an upper-second class degree at bachelors level. A taught masters degree will be an added advantage.
How to apply
Please email your application to Denise Postings, Research Office Manager, d.postings@sgul.kingston.ac.uk. The subject (title) of your email must be 'PhD Studentships' and your email should include:
- a curriculum vitae
- a supporting statement summarising your reasons for wishing to undertake PhD studies in the specific project area that you are interested in
- contact details of two referees who have direct knowledge of your academic/work ability (one of the referees should be your current/last supervisor) .
The application deadline is 5pm on Friday 7th May 2010. It is expected that interviews will be held during the week beginning 24th May 2010.
