Applied Health Sciences (MSc by Research)

This proposal explores how to develop an often neglected but important aspect of person-centred care. Members of the Spirituality Special Interest Group at the University (now reconstituted as the Spirituality and Compassion Special interest Group, SCSIG and led by myself) have supported a number of PhD studies to date as well as conducted a number of research studies. The concept of Spiritually Competent Practice (SCP; Wattis, Curran and Rogers, 2017) was developed from one of these pieces of work (Jones, 2017). It understands spirituality as part of the human search for meaning and distinguishes it from religion, seeing spiritual care as an important part of holistic person-centred care. My own PhD explored how concepts of Availability and Vulnerability, based on the Celtic Christian tradition, could be ‘secularised’ in Advanced Nursing Practice in Primary Care (Rogers 2016). Earlier work in the group had looked at health care educators’ attitudes to and understanding of spirituality, using brief rating scales developed for the purpose (Prentis et al., 2014). Working in partnership with the local NHS Mental Health Trust we have explored and extended these studies into Mental Health staff (Rogers et al 2019/2020), looking at attitudes to spirituality in mental health care and exploring the utility of SCP and A&V in this context. A study looking at mental health patients’ views has been interrupted by the pandemic but is in progress. The next phase of our research is to extend similar work into the fields of primary care and secondary care. This proposal is for a study exploring attitudes of primary care clinicians (including General Practitioners and Advanced Practitioners) to spirituality and the utility of SCP and A&V in developing understanding in primary care. It would use a mixed methods approach and details of the project would be developed to incorporate interests of a prospective PhD candidate as well as the SCSIG group’s interest in the wider applicability of SCP and A&V as educational and clinical tools in this area.

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

• Dr Melanie Rogers
• Dr Michael Snowden

Electronic health record (EHR) systems have the potential to support the transformation of healthcare, with concurrent enhancements in both quality and safety. However, there needs to be a transformation also in the way in which we conceptualize the role of, and content of, EHR systems. Existing EHR systems fail to support and reflect the dynamic, interdisciplinary and patient-centred nature of healthcare practice, thereby inhibiting the optimal use of potentially valuable data. Research within this topic area seeks to explore new approaches to documentation, taking patient-centred care as its initial focus.

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

• Professor Nicholas Hardiker
• Dr Bibha Simkhada

Death, dying, and bereavement are significant human experiences that require social exploration. Just now, as the world continues to grapple with a myriad of challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, issues related to human mortality are resonating with the public and policymakers alike, with a renewed sense of importance.

To contribute to knowledge about lived experiences of death, dying and loss we welcome applications to conduct original research about different aspects of these experiences from social, cultural, and relational perspectives.

Indicative areas of study could include:
Personal relationships and intimacy at the end of life, inequalities, social identity, materiality and material culture, palliative and end of life care and particular experiences of loss such miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death.

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

• Dr Julie Ellis

The project should involve a novel application of advanced statistical analysis applied to a large and/or complex data set from an experimental or observational health or biomedical study. Data collection need not form part of the project if an appropriate data set may be identified.

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

• Dr John Stephenson
• Dr Warren Gillibrand

Running shoes vary in style shape and support which by definition will redistribute pressure in the foot. How does the pressure differ in different types of running shoes and how does this compare to normal shoes?

Please see our scholarships page at https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/scholarships to find out about funding or studentship options available

Please see details via the following web page https://www.hud.ac.uk/research/howtoapply/

• Dr Michael Fish
• Dr Sean Hudson

This research project will focus on improving load carriage performance for military and/or emergency service personnel. Specific research questions are open for discussion between supervisor and PhD student. Areas of interest include investigating the effect of High-Intensity Interval Training on load carriage performance and the ventilatory system and investigating the effects of load carriage training and resistance training on load carriage biomechanics and energy expenditure.

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

• Dr Matthew Haines
• Dr Sean Hudson

Previous research on the mechanics and energetics of load carriage has shown individual variation in walking gait kinematics and energy expenditure when different methods of load carriage are compared. This research project will focus on identifying the magnitude and determinants of this variability.

Please see our Scholarships page to find out about funding or studentship options available.

• Dr Michael Fish
• Dr Sean Hudson