Southampton
All queries regarding the SPCR internship programme should be sent by email to spcr@keele.ac.uk and will be directed as necessary.
| Title of Project | Brief Summary |
| Enhancing health checks for people with learning disabilities in primary care. |
The Supporter-HC study aims to explore how carers support people with learning disabilities to attend their annual health check, understand and implement their health plan, and manage their health afterwards. Regular health checks are important because they can identify and monitor health problems, and promote health and wellbeing. However, health checks vary between GP practices, and people with learning disabilities report mixed experiences. Also, carers can feel unprepared and be unsure about their role. The Supporter-HC study involves qualitative telephone interviews with a wide range of family carers, supporters and professionals who are supporting people in their homes and community settings. It is part of a larger project which also includes the voices of people with learning disabilities and primary healthcare professionals to improve health checks and health plans in primary care. The internship will involve working with the research team to assist with collection and analysis of the interview data, and contributing to the study report. Training and supervision will be provided for qualitative methods and using computer software for data analysis. There will be an opportunity to present the findings to our patient and public involvement group. |
| Understanding long-term antidepressant use and discontinuation in areas of multiple deprivation |
The REDUCE programme developed tools for patients and practitioners to support antidepressant discontinuation for people who have been taking them long-term and wish to stop. The majority of participants in those studies were from affluent backgrounds with higher levels of education. Research shows that in areas of multiple deprivation, people are more likely to be taking antidepressants and they may be less able to stop them if they wanted. The planned internship will be embedded within a project that aims to understand the views and experiences of taking and stopping antidepressants with people who live in areas of multiple deprivation. We plan to conduct qualitative interviews with people from these areas about their experiences with antidepressants so that we can learn what support they might need if they wanted to stop taking them. We will also work with the community to decide what support is useful. We will do this through ‘Listening Cafes’, where we will talk to people with lived experience and make shared decisions about the research and about the support we design (known as co-production). The successful applicant will assist with recruiting GP practices and patients to interviews, and with setting up and facilitating Listening Cafes. This is hands on experience with qualitative research methods, co-production, and public involvement. They will learn about intervention development methods, theory, and techniques (e.g. behaviour change and the Person-Based Approach). |
| Interventions to support carers and couples living with long-term conditions |
The intern will assist with several Primary Care Behavioural Science projects aiming to support carers and couples, including:
Tasks may include searching electronic databases, screening papers for inclusion, data extraction, transcribing qualitative interviews, updating intervention (website) content, and cleaning and analysing website usage data. |
| A scoping review of modifiable markers for monitoring atrial fibrillation treatment |
One 10 people aged over 65 in the UK have AF and its prevalence is increasing. AF is associated with an increased risk of stroke, Heart Failure (HF), cognitive impairment, and death. Current treatment recommendations include stroke prevention, symptom management and cardiovascular and co-morbidity risk reduction. Although stroke prevention is at the core of AF management, many deaths are due to Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) and progressive HF in anticoagulated AF populations. There are currently no treatments to specifically target these important causes or morbidity and mortality in AF patients. Effective lifestyle interventions including taking regular exercise and weight loss may help reduce the risk of developing HF and SCD. There has been considerable interest in evaluating antidiabetic medications for cardiovascular disease. Clinical risk predictors such as the CHA2DS2-VASc score can be used to predict the risk of stroke and mortality in AF patients but the score includes non-modifiable variables. Biomarkers such as N-terminal pro–B-type natriuretic peptide, high-sensitivity troponin, echocardiographic markers including left atrial enlargement and other markers which are relatively inexpensive and are accessible in primary care could be used to identify higher risk patients and monitor response to treatment. The aim of this internship would be to assist with a scoping review of modifiable markers for risk prediction and response to treatment in atrial fibrillation. Tasks will include searching electronic databases, screening papers for inclusion, data extraction and writing up of findings. |
