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- Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre
I was employed as a research worker and project co-ordinator at the Institute of Psychiatry on
three different projects:
A neurophysiological and genetic study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children:
This study, funded by the Medical Research Council, recruited both monozygotic and dizygotic twin boys aged between 12-15 years old from the Twins Early Development Study. Participants were either concordant or disconcordant for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or typically developing controls. The research involved the twins taking part in several cognitive tasks while their neural activity was monitored using electroencephalography (EEG) techniques.
My role in this study was that of Project Coordinator; I was responsible for booking the EEG, phlebotomy and other testing equipment as well as helping to set up the new EEG lab at the centre. My main duties involved choosing appropriate families to contact for participation in the study, contacting these families to ask them to task part in the study and booking them into testing slots. I was also responsible for looking after the family on the day of their visit to the centre; organising hotel stays and refreshments etc. Other tasks included liaison with all members of the large multidisciplinary research team to ensure that the project ran efficiently and successfully and to deal with any problems that the members of the research team faced. Finally, I was also required to assist in the design and modification of particular research materials and tasks, and was also responsible for writing and submitting ethics applications for the study.
Service use and needs among those with ADHD or ASD during transitional years from adolescence to young adulthood:
My work on this study, supervised by Professor Philip Asherson and Dr Karen Glaser, involved interviewing and administering questionnaires to adolescents and young adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their parents or
partners. The study aimed to investigate the service use and needs among those diagnosed with
ADHD and ASD during the transitional years from adolescence to young adulthood (14-23 years). The areas investigated were: Service Use and Satisfaction, Symptom presence/Persistence, Carer Burden, Transitioning, Assessing Psychiatric Comorbidity, Parent and child needs. For this role I received training in how to administer and score ADHD diagnostic questionnaires and questionnaires assessing other forms of psychopathology and mental disturbance. I was also responsible for contacting and recruiting families for the study. Another important aspect of this work was making families aware of local support groups, the NICE guidelines for treating ADHD in adulthood and government initiatives for better transitioning between child and adult mental health services.
Using brain activation to study adolescents’ activity and attentiveness:
In this study I assisted Dr Jonna Kuntsi on an fMRI project researching activity and attentiveness in adolescents with ADHD. My role primarily involved recruitment of participants, booking participants for MRI scanning, and liaising with participating families to ensure their attendance. The participants’ teachers also need to be contacted, so another of my tasks is to contact the schools and teachers in order to have questionnaires completed. I was also involved in cognitive testing of participants, helping parents work through questionnaires, typing up notes about the testing days, and visiting the participants at home for follow-up cognitive testing. I also compiled the testing materials needed for each testing session and was involved in contacting families after the testing had taken place in order to send out newsletters about the study. Furthermore, I was involved in general administrative work and management of the study. For example, I was responsible for creating and updating several databases for the study, including databases of participant information and testing dates and databases that contained results from cognitive testing (using SPSS, Microsoft Excel and Access). My other duties involved processing travel expenses and participant payment, ordering office supplies, managing petty cash, and signing invoices for the study. I also ran monthly finance reports for the study using the Aptos EAS system.
Voluntary Work:
- Clare House Hospital, St. Andrews Healthcare (March 2009-February 2010)
Clare House is part of the St. Andrew’s Healthcare group and provides regional care for 87 men and women aged 18-70 with a variety of mental health and learning disability needs. I work as a Healthcare Assistant in the Enhanced Low Secure (High Dependency) women’s unit and the Personality Disorder Service for men/Rehab and Recovery for Mental Illness unit. These units accept admissions from medium secure units, psychiatric intensive care units, and a criminal justice set-up. All of the patients that I work with have been sectioned under the Mental HealthAct (1983). My role involves developing and maintaining therapeutic relationship with patients, assisting development and delivery of care plans, recording and communicating information relevant to patient care plans.
- Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London (May 2008 – July 2008)
Volunteer research assistant working for Athena Tsiokris on an attachment research project involving use of the Child Attachment Interview (CAI; Target et al., 2003). This temporary role involved watching DVD recordings of both clinical and typical children being interviewed using the CAI protocol and transcribing these interviews. Through this work I became familiarised with the CAI procedure and the CAI coding table.
- Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London (June 2007 – Sept 2007)
Research Assistantship awarded for work with Professor Susan Michie – this position was funded to work on a variety of Department of Health projects, giving me valuable experience of clinical health psychology within the public health setting:
Using psychological theory to understand and change healthcare worker hand-hygiene behaviour in the National Health Service
This study aimed to develop and evaluate an intervention to change healthcare worker hand hygiene behaviour. The intervention is being trialed at 16 hospitals in England and Wales, with a view to implementation across the NHS as a whole. I designed and prepared intervention materials, including a training manual, quiz and poster. In addition, I helped to analyse how well the intervention was implemented at three inner London NHS hospitals. I was responsible for all data entry, including implementation and hand-hygiene behaviour data. I was also responsible for reviewing relevant theoretical literature, in particular, looking at theories of selfregulation.
A systematic review of interventions to increase healthy eating and physical activity in the general population
For this study, I was extensively involved in the extraction of data from identified papers. This meant extracting data on study design and intervention content. I was trained to use a taxonomy of behaviour change techniques in order to code interventions. I also assisted in the procedure of testing inter-rater agreement regarding the data extraction process.
A systematic review of health behaviour intervention fidelity studies
Using Cochrane systematic review methodology, I was responsible for the development of a suitable search strategy. This involved a rigorous process of experimenting with various search terms until the research team agreed that the strategy identified all relevant papers. Working with Dr. Dawn Wilkinson, I then screened all identified papers by title, and abstract.
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