pathway: Health and Wellbeing/Health, Wellbing & Society

Children who have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or related symptoms such as difficulty concentrating or hyperactivity, often find school difficult. A substantial body of research looks at why school is challenging for these children and ways to help them during lessons. Almost no research though has looked at how playtimes during school are experienced by these children. Play is not only important to a child’s development, but it is important to the child. I will seek to understand how children with ADHD traits experience school playtimes and explore how a playtime improvement programme impacts children with ADHD traits.

There is presently research exploring the mental health inequalities experienced by the various groups of the Romani diaspora, Traveller communities and Queer (LGBTQIA+) communities across UK, however there is an absence explicitly exploring the intersectional experiences of Queer Romani & Traveller mental health. My research aims to, through participatory arts based & digital research methods, fill the gap missing in the present scope of research to inform mental health and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies and toolkits.

My phenomenological research will explore the experience of perimenopause and its effects on UK women’s social identity, self-concept, and transition. Perimenopause is the period leading up to menopause, characterized by physical and emotional changes. Historically, peri/menopause has been stigmatized and linked to disease and aging, leading to negative attitudes. I will explore how perimenopausal women are devalued and negatively stereotyped within society which may lead to identity and wellbeing issues. I will also explore how misinformation could discredit a women’s lived experience and hinder them from seeking support and how positive perceptions of perimenopause may create acceptance and freedom.

There is a lack of ADHD support available to people in the UK. Young people who are transitioning between child and adult health services often face disruption to the care they may be receiving, alongside other challenges. A team at the University of Exeter are currently developing a digital intervention to improve access to healthcare for young people with ADHD, based on findings from the Managing ADHD services in Primary care study which highlight inadequacies of current support services. My mixed-methods PhD will explore ways to tailor the digital intervention to underserved communities to promote digital health equality.

In the UK, one in four young people (aged 16-25) are impacted by a mental health condition. While policymakers recognise the urgency of this problem, resources and personnel within National Health Service (NHS) are stretched too thin to meet the growing demand for support. To help relieve this burden, Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots – like OpenAI’s ChatGPT – have been proposed as a promising tool to deliver accessible, personalised, and cost-effective psychotherapeutic interventions at scale. Building on this potential, the present project aims to develop and pilot an AI-guided psychotherapeutic chatbot for UK-based young people.

My PhD projects seeks to understand the potential of enhancing social prescribing initiatives to improve older adult wellbeing and reduce the demand for domiciliary (home) care. Drawing upon the social determinants of health to enable a holistic comprehension of everyday life, my study shall utilise ethnographic methodologies to explore the contemporary relationships between social prescribing, older adult wellbeing, and the demand for domiciliary care to generate a critical framework for current policy development.

My research aims to explore and understand the mental health and wellbeing experiences of fathers whose babies have received neonatal palliative care. By bringing together perspectives from palliative care, applied social science, nursing, and health systems research, this study will enable interdisciplinary insights into the social, cultural, and structural dimensions that shape the mental health and wellbeing experiences of fathers during neonatal palliative care and identify their support needs.

 

Publications

 

Redman, H., Clancy, M. and Thomas, F., 2024. Culturally sensitive neonatal palliative care: a critical review. Palliative Care and Social Practice, 18.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26323524231222499

 

Clancy, M., Thomas, F., Redman, H., Walsh, B., and Gasiorowski, E., 2024. Informing culturally sensitive neonatal palliative care: Focus on bereavement. Infant Journal, 20(5).

https://www.infantjournal.co.uk/journal_article.html?id=7422

Only 20% of those who successfully lose weight manage to keep the weight off. Weight loss maintenance is complex due to the extended time frame and various psychosocial stressors. Some examples of these stressors include waning social support for health behaviours and fear of weight regain. Formal support is limited during weight loss maintenance, and, consequently, individuals can feel very isolated. Social identity can act as an important driver of our health behaviours and decisions. Therefore, to improve our health in the long-term, it is important to understand social identity’s role and potential therapeutic application within weight loss maintenance.

 

Publications

Watkins, R., Swancutt, D., Alexander, M. et al. A Qualitative Exploration of Patient and Staff Experiences of the Receipt and Delivery of Specialist Weight Management Services in the UK. Patient 16, 625–640 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-023-00644-9

Diabetes is the most common chronic health condition which affects women during pregnancy. On top of the significant life changes women go through during pregnancy, diabetes management can increase the psychological burden experienced. We know that Physical Activity beneficial during pregnancy for mental and physical health, however very little is known about Physical Activity during pregnancy in women with pre-existing Diabetes. My PhD project will be exploring how Physical Activity and Mental Health change throughout pregnancy in women with pre-existing Diabetes.

For my doctoral research, I plan to explore feelings of belonging in the workplace amongst ‘young’ people in hybrid-working roles, post-pandemic. Through this work, I hope to contribute to the Public Health knowledge-base on the hybrid workplace as a social determinant of health, with a particular focus on how this may relate to feelings of belonging or not belonging as ‘protective’ or ‘adverse’ psychosocial factors. I am currently looking to use creative qualitative methods for this interdisciplinary piece of work, spanning the disciplines of Public Health, Anthropology and Social and Organisational Psychology.