N of 1 Research Design to Evaluate Novel Medical Device Performance

Speaker: Professor Patricia Grocott

This presentation will focus on the application of an N-of-1 research design to evaluate the performance of a disposable dressing glove with a reinforced web-spacer glove with patients with Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB).

The devices are needed by individuals with RDEB to manage skin blisters, which are inherent to the condition, and give rise to conjoined fingers and contracted hands unless devices are used to prevent this. The dressing and reinforced web-spacer glove can prevent scar tissue, which arises from healed blisters, from conjoining fingers and contracting hands. The strengths of the N-of-1 design in answering the how, when, why, when not, why not questions and the capacity to assess between and within person change over time will be discussed. The need for specific, valid and reliable outcome measures, which are sensitive measures of clinically significant change over time in relation to device performance will also be discussed in relation to the TELER methodology.

An outbreak of gratitude

Speaker: Giskin Day, PhD student

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a tumultuous time in human history. But amidst the welter of negative emotions, the early weeks of the pandemic will be remembered in the UK for conspicuous positively-valenced expressions of appreciation to the NHS.

The role of gratitude was hotly debated on social media: on one hand, the clap-for-carers campaign catalysed compelling displays of civic togetherness, but gratitude was also construed as a dangerous distraction that authorised unrealistic expectations of healthcare workers.

This study analyses a corpus of 831 most-‘liked’ tweets of gratitude to the NHS, purposively sampled from Twitter searches on a day-by-day basis over the period of the first lockdown in the UK (22 March – 28 May 2020). The analysis explores the dynamics of expressions of gratitude at a time of fast-moving events and also investigates what the NHS was thanked for. Expressions of gratitude are important indicators of qualities to which people attach significance. The study gives an insight into how the NHS was constructed in the popular imagination at a time of crisis.

About the NMPC Research Seminars

These monthly seminars showcase the research activity going on in the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care. Each month, we focus on one of our four Research Divisions:

Division of Applied Technologies for Clinical Care, Division of Care in Long Term Conditions, Division of Methodologies and the Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, Policy & Rehabilitation.