Non-Profit PhD study -could anyone help please?

Non-Profit: Writing for People Living with Type 2 Diabetes Study [PhD research, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, UK]

Hi, my name is Kathryn Dennick and I am a PhD student at Warwick Medical School. I am looking for people to take part in a study that I am currently running, looking at ways to help people manage and cope with living with type 2 diabetes. If you think this could be something that you might be interested in, please feel free to click the link below for more information (or paste it into your browser should you have problems opening the link).

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/staff/dennick/diabetesstudy/

Thank you very much for your time I really appreciate it. If you have any questions please feel free to me, my contact details are below.

Best wishes,

Kathryn Dennick
Postgraduate Researcher
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
(UK code: 0044) (02476) 575132
E-mail: K.J.Dennick@warwick.ac.uk

Hi HpprKM,

Thank you very much for your post, no that's not rude at all, it's a really good point thanks very much for voicing something that other's may well have been thinking!

Basically this is a project that was designed by my PhD supervisors, Dr Chris Bridle and Dr Jackie Sturt at Warwick Medical School. Jackie in particular has a professional history as a nurse practitioner and over 10 years academic experience in diabetes research. She also currently works in clinical practice in a nurse specialist role as a diabetes self-management facilitator. Their proposal was peer reviewed and competitively won internal funding. That’s when I was recruited to pretty much turn it into a feasible study and essentially undertake it as part of my PhD. That said I should probably explain that it wasn't something they just made up. This sort of writing has been investigated over in over 100 randomised controlled trials, and specifically over the past 10 years in 20 or more randomised controlled trials with adults with long-term conditions, in academic institutions across the UK and United states.

You're right it is focussing on the physical act of writing, and the evidence I have described above seems to suggest that there may be benefits for general well being...and perhaps physical health although this is less clear...for people with long-term conditions. There have additionally been many systematic reviews undertaken, in fact we have also performed our own, and these also seem to indicate that there may be benefits, yet that more research with greater methodological rigour is required. In fact, I believe there is currently a 5 year trial being undertaken with people with diabetes by a very established research group in the United States. Our project is similarly looking at feasibility in the UK.

We also underwent an extensive and rigorous internal and external ethical review in which we were required to provide convincing evidence of the justification for the study, and this was approved. I hope this answers your query. I suppose my point is that while this is my student project, it is not simply my brainchild; it was developed by those with experience in and committed to diabetes care, and it has an empirical foundation that both internal and external review have found to be satisfactory. Also, I should say that 3-4 years is a long time to commit to just one project and I don’t think there are many PhD students who would undertake that without a genuine hope that there may be a positive outcome for the people concerned!

I hope that this is ok, if you have any further queries etc please do let me know and I would be more than happy to answer!

Best wishes,
Kathryn Dennick

Hi all,

Thank you so much for your comments, and questions, this is really very useful for us as this is, as you rightly point out, a small scale feasibility/pilot trial, the results of which, should we have enough participants, will inform a bid for external funding and a much larger scale trial (which would be run by the research team that my supervisors are part of -i.e. not my PhD). So I suppose I should say that it is a small scale study with the intention of finding out what works/does not work and what people do/do not like before a large, expensive trial is undertaken (this is standard for clinical trials which require at least 2 initial exploratory phases before a full trial is launched).

In terms of confirming diagnoses, you're absolutely right again. We have been running a very similar trial in primary care for some 9 months now, which enables us to recruit via GP practices who confirmed medical diagnosis via medical records. However, since starting the study that we are advertising here, this of course hasn't been possible as we do not have access to medical records. This is a limitation that is inherent in this type of study, but we do at least have a point of comparison where diagnoses have been confirmed.

Again, this is also one of many similar trials that have been conducted/are being undertaken in the context of long-term conditions. In terms of policy, I honestly don’t know whether this will be something that is taken up by the Government in the future, all I can say is that, with your invaluable help, the evidence base is growing, and writing has the benefit that it is incredibly in inexpensive.

I hope this answers your questions and concerns a little, I would just like to say thank you so much for everyone who has offered their help and support, I really do appreciate it. I would also be more than happy to post the results once we have them and do fully intend to do this.

Thank you again.

(p.s. I have just read your post, IanD, thank you very much. Yes, it is a task of writing for 20 minutes on three separate days over the course one week (i.e. at a convenient that is time for you). I very much hope this is ok.)

Best wishes,
Kathryn

Hi IanD,

My apologies it should read 'at a time that is convenient for you' -I completely missed that despite previewing it (?!), thank you very much for pointing it out!

Best wishes,
Kathryn

Dear all,

Some time ago some of you kindly helped us with a study looking at writing for people with Type 2 diabetes. As promised, I have uploaded a copy of the summary of the findings that has been just been sent to participants to the study website, should you like to see this.

The study website can be accessed by following the link below (or pasting this into your browser):

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/staff/dennick/diabetesstudy/

Our apologies for the delay in sending this, efforts to recruit more participants in an attempt to provide more conclusive results, and the analysis thereafter, took quite some time. The study has also been through a rigorous peer review process that was just recently completed.

Once again, thank you very much to everyone that helped, you really did make an enormous difference and the study provided a wealth of feasibility data to inform, and which provided justification for, a further study of writing for people with Type 2 diabetes.

Many thanks,
Kathryn Dennick