Qualitative research – where to start?! – Here’s some help

“The idea of the qualitative support group was initiated by Dr Kinda Ibrahim who felt that establishing a peer support network for members within CLAHRC Wessex and the wider University could be helpful to facilitate the use and development of qualitative research in health, illness and care.

This group has been massively supported by CLAHRC central team and Professors Cathy Pope and prof Anne Rogers.

The goal of this group is to encourage an intellectually dynamic yet supportive atmosphere for debate and discussion that examines the place of qualitative research in health research, its core concepts and methods.

The group meets every 2-3 months to share experience and research and are looking to possibly organise training workshops to staff, postgraduate and undergraduate candidates who are conducting or interested in conducting qualitative research. The agenda of this group is driven by its members and their interests and needs.

Dr Teresa Corbett suggested starting a “Qualitative journal club” to form the basis of the discussion in our group and has recently put a call out for recommendations for a “MUST READ LIST” for qualitative researchers on Twitter. The response was fantastic with over 50 replies. Many of those who replied on Twitter asked us to share the list with them once it was compiled.

So we have decided to build this dedicated resource to help and advise people”.

We have also started building up a resource that to be shared so that we can look up the best person(s) within our group that could help, advise, and support. If you would like to add your details, please click here

Who cares? Genie explores the lives of young carers

According to research by the Children’s Society there are estimated to be 700,000 young carers aged between 5 and 17 years old in the UK.

That figure surprise many people, and the charity goes on to explain how caring at a young age can impact a young persons’ education, health, development and quality of life.

Are some social networks better for self-management than others? Dr Ivaylo Vassilev, Senior Research Fellow

The everyday management of a long-term condition is almost never done by individuals in isolation from others. The networks of relationships around people may include family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues, health professionals and even pets all of who play an important role in the management of long-term conditions. This is through, for example, their knowledge, support, help with accessing services, resources and valued activities.

Where the NHS stops and online takes over – Chris Allen

Chris Allen is a Research Fellow and a nurse in Southampton

There comes a point in everyone’s life when they get news that changes their life…of course it’s not always bad. Think “you’ve got the all clear” or “you’re going to have a baby”.

But what if that’s not so good. “You have diabetes” or “you have developed COPD”. In those cases firstly you might ask the doctor or nurse- “what can you do?” and “how is it going to affect me?”

It’s the taking part that counts – How using social networks might support mental health recovery. Sandra Walker writes about how her research took an unexpected turn.

Managing our mental health is something we all do and for many of us it is a fairly straightforward process, but a significant number of us are likely to find it rather more complex, sometimes  needing support from our GP or mental health services. As part of our research in CLAHRC Wessex we’re looking at how people use their social networks to improve and manage their mental health.