Tag: Designing research

Involving women to help shape a project exploring pregnancy care following weight-loss surgery

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In conversation with: Dr Saleem Ansari, Registrar in Metabolic Medicine and Chemical Pathology, working within the Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, imperial College London

What is your research project about and what stage are you at?

My research aims to answer the question ‘What is the preferred weight-loss operation for women with obesity who are of child-bearing age.’

There are two main weight loss-operations, the ‘gastric bypass ‘and sleeve gastrectomy’. The gastric bypass operation is associated with complications during pregnancy such as early delivery and small babies, but whether these complications occur after sleeve gastrectomy is currently unknown.

Involving Year One students to help shape research into physical activity and child health

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In conversation with: Dr Bina Ram, Postdoctoral Research Associate working within the Child Health Unit, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London

What is your research about and what did you do?

Our research is the iMprOVE cohort study which is investigating children’s physical activity and mental health in primary schools that do and do not implement physical activity interventions. Regular physical activity is known to have many health benefits but only half of children in England meet the recommended guidelines of 60 minutes of physical activity per day.

Involving women to design and develop research into early-onset pre-eclampsia

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In conversation with Olive Adams, Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Midwife working with Professor Christoph Lees and the research team based at the Centre for fetal care at Imperial Healthcare Trust and Women’s Health Research Centre at Imperial College London.

How would you describe your role as a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Midwife? 

My role as PPI midwife was specifically developed to ensure high quality public involvement activity was undertaken across all of Professor Lees upcoming projects within the Women’s Health Research Centre, including enabling involvement at the very  earliest stage of each study.

Involving parents to inform research into pre-school wheeze

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In conversation with: Dr Hanna Creese, Postdoctoral Research Associate working within the Child Health Unit, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London 

What is your research about?

Our research explores pre-school wheeze. A third of preschool-aged (1-5 years) children experience wheeze, making them cough and/or have breathing difficulties. The number of preschool children in the United Kingdom (UK) who suffer or die from wheeze attacks is higher compared to that in other European countries. Recurrent wheeze can last throughout childhood and be an indication that the child will develop asthma.

Designing follow-up care for stroke with those who know it best

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In conversation with: Jennifer Crow, Clinical Specialist Occupational Therapist in Stroke who is undertaking a NIHR Pre-doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship programme working within: Therapies/Stroke at Charing Cross Hospital, London

Jenny’s pre-doctoral fellowship is a partnership fellowship funded by the Stroke Association and the National Institute for Health Research.

What did you do? 

I ran my first virtual Patient Public Involvement Group via zoom with 6 attendees. I had previously been involved in public engagement activities in the form of patient stories and feedback but I had not attempted public involvement.

How women with experience of miscarriage helped shape and design my research

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In conversation with: Dr Bijal Patel, Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Registrar, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London

Project Details

My research aims to improve the diagnosis of miscarriage. Miscarriage currently takes several weeks to diagnose, resulting in significant psychological trauma for women and their families.

Levels of a hormone produced by the placenta, called ‘kisspeptin’, can be used to estimate the risk of miscarriage with a high degree of accuracy. The current method to measure kisspeptin levels in the blood takes several days to provide results and cannot be easily conducted in other centres.

The Young People in Psych Research Group: helping scientists iMAGine better research for self-harm

This entry is part [part not set] of 0 in the series Case studiesThis entry is part 4 of 5 in the series PPI Awards: Round 4 Reports

In conversation with: Dr Martina Di Simplicio, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, and Rachel Rodrigues, PhD Student. Working within the Mood Instability Research Group, Centre for Psychiatry, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London.

What did you do?

Our research project called iMAGine looks at the psychological processes contributing to maintenance of self-harm behaviour in young people, including whether aspects of ‘reward’ or positive reinforcement underlie self-harm. From the very start of the study, we’ve been collaborating with a group of six young people (17 to 25-year-olds) with and without experience of self-harm.