Cancer Experiences
Collaborative

Research Scholarships

CECo provides Scholarships of up to £10,000 to enable novice researchers to free up time to write for publication and/or develop a research protocol or fellowship application. We received 12 applications for the CECo Scholarship Scheme this year, which is the largest number submitted so far. From these the review panel awarded six Scholarships. While we would normally award two Scholarships this year and two next year, a decision was taken to spend all the remaining funds now to ensure that Scholars would benefit fully from CECo mentoring and support in the collaborative's final, sixth year. As not all Scholars required the full Scholarship amount, we were also able to spread the available funds over a larger number of applicants.

Scholar Publications to-date

Our previous nine scholars 2007-2010 have to date published 13 papers related to their CECo Scholarship work (see publication list), submitted a further three papers, and our most recent scholars have two publications planned/ in preparation. Five scholars have presented their work at international conferences (EAPC, IPOS) as posters or oral presentations, four will have presented at national conferences, and all will have presented at CECo conferences by the end of April 2011. One scholar has gained an MClin Studentship, a further two have started PhD study, and one has recently submitted an application for an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship. Between them the scholars have also obtained five grants and awards, including a BUPA Foundation Grant and a Florence Nightingale Travel Scholarship.

CECo Scholars Publication List

Hennings J, Froggatt K, Keady J. (2010) Approaching the end of life and dying with dementia in care homes: the accounts of family carers. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology; 20(2): 114-127.

Hennings J, Froggatt K, Keady J. (2009) Standard practice or practice standard? Family involvement at the end of life. Nursing & Residential Care; 11(8): 403-5.

Higgins, L, Kernaghan, K & Lloyd - Williams, M (2010) Development of a mental health self-Help guide for survivors, Cancer Nursing Practice; 9 (3): 20-23.

Lydon,A., Beaver,K., Newbery,C., and Wray,J. (2009) Routine follow-up after treatment for ovarian cancer in the United Kingdom (UK): patient and health professional views. European Journal of Oncology Nursing; 13: 336 - 343.

Lydon, A. and Corgie, D. (2011) Audit of follow-up visits for patients with ovarian cancer. Cancer Nursing Practice; 10 (2): 27-31.

Lydon A, Hennings J, Ryan-Woolley B (2010). Evaluation of a British child bereavement service: The user's perspective. Palliative and Supportive Care; 8: 297-303.

Lydon, A., Ryan-Woolley, B. & Amir, Z. (2009) Exploration of the structure and function of cancer self-help and support groups: results of a telephone survey conducted in the United Kingdom. Cancer Nursing Practice; 8 (8): 12 - 19

McCreaddie, M., Payne, S, Froggatt, K. (2010). Ensnared by positivity: a constructivist perspective on 'being positive' in cancer care. European Journal of Oncology Nursing; 14: 283-290.

McCreaddie, M., Payne, S. (2010). Evolving Grounded Theory Methodology: towards a discursive approach. International Journal of Nursing Studies; (47) 781-793.

Partington, L Kinley, J Hennings, J Froggatt, K Letter re: Ahearn DJ, Jackson TB, McIlmoyle J, Weatherburn AJ (2010). Improving end of life care for nursing home residents: an analysis of hospital mortality and readmission rates. Postgraduate Medicine Journal; 86:131-135. doi:10.1136/pgmj.2008.076430.

Rigby, J, Payne, S and Froggatt, K (2010) What evidence is there about the specific environmental needs of older people who are near the end of life and are cared for in hospices or similar institutions? A literature review. Palliative Medicine; 24(3): 268-285

Shennan, C., Payne, S. and Fenlon, D. What is the evidence for the use of mindfulness-based interventions in cancer care? A review. Psycho-Oncology, n/a. doi: 10.1002/pon.1819

Wood MJM, Molassiotis A, Payne S (2010) 'What research evidence is there for the use of art therapy in the management of symptoms in adults with cancer? A systematic review' Psycho-Oncology 20: 135-145

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A selection of comments from former scholars:

The CECo Scholarship aims to help health care professionals develop their research ideas and submit an application for a research grant of PhD studentship award. With the support and guidance of experience CECo researchers, I plan to write a research proposal and submit an applications for a PhD training studentship. The Scholarship is for three months and I am being mentored and supervised by Prof. Kinta Beaver at the University of Manchester.
Anne-Marie Lydon, Macmillan Research Associate, School of Nursing Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, 2006-7 CECo Scholar

By attending CECo meetings and courses I have also been able to meet with other researchers and find out more about what other research is being conducted and other areas of interest. Currently I have been working towards writing a proposal for a PhD which we are hopeful about obtaining funding for which again is something that I would not have had the opportunity to do without the Scholarship.
Lorna Higgins, Primary Care Graduate Mental Health Worker, Wirral Primary Care Trust, 2006-7 CECo Scholar

I am a Staff Nurse at the East Cheshire Hospice in Macclesfield, and I was delighted to be awarded a CECo Scholarship in March 2008. The Scholarship funding has benefited me in two ways: it has enabled me to attend the International Observatory on End of Life Care Research Summer School at Lancaster University, and has allowed me to reduce my hours of work so that I can conduct a research project over the next nine months. The International Research Summer School was a great experience for me, as I was able to meet a group of health care professionals from many countries, and to benefit from very high quality teaching on research methods. In the second week, each student was able to receive support and tuition on developing their own research project, and it was very helpful to have the expert support of staff from the International Observatory on End of Life Care. My own research project is a review of the literature on the specific environmental needs of older hospice patients. I have been privileged to have the support and supervision of Professor Sheila Payne and Dr Katherine Froggatt at Lancaster University. I look forward to sharing my findings when they become available!
Janet Rigby, CECo Scholar 2007-8

The 2009 - 2010 scholars were May McCreaddie, Jean Hennings and Christina Shennan.

The CECo scholarship will provide me with the opportunity to further develop my qualitative research skills and methodological expertise in the area of humour, interaction and innovative methodologies. The aim of the scholarship is to develop several publications and a post-doctoral funding application in conjunction with the innovative methodologies and research partner themes. I am delighted to have this opportunity to extend and enhance my academic horizons and am particularly pleased to be working with Professor Sheila Payne and Dr Katherine Froggatt - my supervisors/mentors for the duration of the scholarship.
May McCreaddie

I am delighted to have been awarded one of the CECo scholarships which will enable me to perform an integrative literature review and to prepare the results for publication and presentation. The title of the review is 'Approaching the end of life and dying with dementia in care homes; the accounts of family carers. This work will be supervised by Dr Katherine Froggatt (Senior Lecturer/Head of Division, Division of Health Research, Lancaster University) and Professor John Keady (Professor of Mental Health Nursing and Older People, University of Manchester). The CECo scholarship gives me a wonderful opportunity to do this preparatory work which will underpin the proposed PhD and to work with two eminent experts in the field of dying with dementia in care homes.
Jean Hennings

The CECo scholarship will allow me to develop research skills and conduct a literature review focussing on the effects of mindfulness based interventions on patients with cancer. I am delighted and proud to be part of CECo.
Christina Shennan

This year's 2010-2011 scholars are Rebecca Lee and Caroline Spicka.

I was lucky to have been awarded the CeCo scholarship, which enabled me to work on a research project that I initially developed during my academic foundation doctor training. With the support of my CeCo supervisor Professor Alexander Molassiotis and my clinical mentor Dr Anne Armstrong I developed a research proposal, gained ethical approval and completed the first part of my research looking into the attitudes and beliefs of patients and health professionals regarding fertility issues in young women with breast cancer.

Through CeCo funding, I was able to attend a course on cognitive interviewing, where I learnt techniques which were then used to develop two questionnaires. They will be sent to patients and health professionals in order to ascertain their beliefs regarding fertility services, ovarian stimulation and pregnancy post breast cancer. I found it challenging to learn a completely new method of data collection and the technique gave me much insight into how questions were interpreted. I cognitively interviewed 9 patients and 9 health professionals in total and have now finalised the questionnaires. These will be sent out over the next few months and we aim to publish the data in a peer reviewed publication next year.

The Ceco scholarship has also helped me to gain generic skills in undertaking research work and I hope that I can continue to build on them through submitting a PhD proposal in the near future. I believe scholarships such as Ceco's are invaluable in developing research capacity and encouraging junior researchers to progress in academia.
Rebecca Lee

I am delighted to have been awarded the CECo scholarship 2010. This provides invaluable experience and gives me the opportunity to develop my understanding of research methods and the process of planning a research project and developing a research idea. I am based in the School of Health Sciences in the University of Southampton and am supervised by Dr Debbie Fenlon, Prof Julia Addington-Hall and Dr Jo Adams. The CECo Scholarship allows me to work part time as an Occupational Therapist. With the support of experienced researchers I am planning to submit an application for the NIHR PhD fellowship in 2011.

I have been undertaking a systematic review into the available evidence for non-pharmacological interventions for arthralgia in non-cancer conditions. This review has sparked my interest in this field of research. Recent research has suggested that women with breast cancer, who are treated with anti-oestrogen e.g. aromatase inhibitors, experience arthralgia-type symptoms. These symptoms can be so severe that these women terminate their treatment, putting themselves at risk of recurrence of their cancer. However, this problem has not yet been explored from the patient's standpoint. Questions remain unanswered regarding the description of their symptoms and the reasons why they self-terminate treatment. There is limited evidence about the effectiveness of interventions to treat arthralgia and about the treatment priorities of these women and what kind of treatment they would accept. This lack of knowledge has raised my interest in exploring this area further and will be the basis of a PhD. The research will aim to inform future treatment and interventions within clinical practice for women with arthralgia following breast cancer.

The scholarship enabled me to attend the CECo Research Methods Workshop 'Introduction of Research in Hospice and Palliative Care', which was of great value. I also plan to attend the NCRI Cancer Conference in Liverpool this year. Many sincere thanks go to CECo for giving me this opportunity and to my supervisors for their advice and support.
Caroline Spicka