University of Bradford PhD student gains funding for research project
Analisa Smythe, a current part-time PhD student with Bradford Dementia Group, has been successful in gaining funding from the Burdett Fund for Nursing for a two-year research project entitled 'Delivering Dignity through Empowered Leadership'.
Jan Oyebode, Professor of Dementia Care at Bradford Dementia Group, is a co-investigator in the study which aims to evaluate a novel research-based training intervention designed to support dignity in dementia care and sustain change in professional practice in nursing homes.
Analisa, who is also a mental health nurse working in Birmingham, developed the intervention from earlier work in which she found that staff working with people with dementia felt they learned most effectively when they received training from others working alongside them in their own environment, rather than only in the classroom. The novel training intervention, which has already been piloted and found to be promising, will be provided to qualified nurses working in care homes and the impact on staff sense of burn-out and motivation will be compared with that in homes where staff do not receive the intervention.
Reports on the earlier work can be found in:
Smythe A, Jenkins C, Harries M, Atkins S, Miller J, Wright J, Crooks J, Wheeler N, Dee P, Bentham P & Oyebode J (2014). Evaluation of dementia training for staff in acute hospital settings. Nursing Older People, 26 (2): 18-24.
Jenkins C, Smythe A, Bentham P & Oyebode J (2014). Development of a Competency Framework for a Specialist Dementia Service. Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice, 9: 59-68.
Smythe A, Jenkins C, Bentham P & Oyebode J (2013). The experiences of staff in a mental health service in relation to development of the skills for the provision of person centred care for people with dementia. Dementia. E-publication ahead of print, July 2013. Doi: 1471301213494517.