Untitled Document

York St John University - Research for Occupation and Mental Health

We'd like to hear from you!

This e-bulletin is our main method for communicating with people interested in the work of RCOMH so we hope you find it interesting and informative. Please feel free to send any feedback or comments about the work of RCOMH to E: RCOMH@yorksj.ac.uk

Thinking of doing a PhD?

If you are thinking about doing a PhD related to occupation and mental health please email RCOMH and we may be able to put you in touch with someone who can help.

For further information about RCOMH please visit www.yorksj.ac.uk/rcomh or E: RCOMH@yorksj.ac.uk

If you know of others who may be interested in our work please forward this to them using the Forward to a friend button below

The Bridge Issue 42

Bridging the gap between research and practice

Dr Katrina Bannigan I recently had the privilege of attending the Council of Occupational Therapists in European Countries (COTEC ) conference in Stockholm, Sweden. This was a meeting of over 900 people with a focus on occupation. Mental health was only one aspect of the conference; the conference theme was Occupation Diversity. I will try to give you a flavour of the conference, particularly the research presented, from a mental health perspective. Remember it is just one person's reflections; I was only able to attend a certain number of sessions in a large, varied conference. If you have any different reflections that you would like to add please contact us at RCOMH@yorksj.ac.uk and we will include them in future editions of The Bridge.

Health 20:20

One of the key note speeches about Health 20:20 was given by Dr Rohko Kim from the World Health Organisation (WHO do I hear you ask?) European Centre for Environment and Health. There were some important messages for researchers.

Researching occupation & mental health

There were a limited number of papers related to occupation & mental health but the papers presented were of a high quality. We hope to feature the work of some of these researchers in future issues of the The Bridge. It was good to have the opportunity to hear some of the research leaders in the field of occupation and mental health present their work .

Defining terms

I was very interested in papers that were presented about defining terms. I listened to two paper; one about occupational identity and another about occupational balance (Wagman et al 2011). Interesting, especially for us at RCOMH, where we are reviewing the concept of participation as part of our project Developing a measure of participation in mental health, both papers used the same methodology (Walker and Avant 2011). Developing consistent definitions of key terms (operationalisation) is very important for conducting research so that can be pooled. To read more see:

Walker, L. O., & Avant, C. K. (2011). Strategies for theory construction in nursing (5ed.). Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wagman, P., Håkansson, C., & Björklund, A. (2011). Occupational balance as used in occupational therapy: A concept analysis Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, Published online 2011 07 25.

A new perspective on reflexivity

Lindsey Nicholls, from Brunel University, and Heather Hunter, Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh), gave a very powerful paper about reflexivity. This paper appealed to me because it has long been a bugbear of mine that such limited attention is paid to reflexivity in qualitative research.

RCOMH in the COTEC programme

RCOMH presented two posters and two papers; these were about the EAGER project, the SIPPS project and RCOMH's work. These were well received and hopefully some of you are reading this edition of The Bridge because you decided to sign up as a result of attending the presentation at COTEC. RCOMH and The Bridge is a resource for the research community researching occupation and mental health. If you want to share your work please let us know (RCOMH@yorksj.ac.uk) and you could be a feature in a future edition. The Bridge is sent out to 500 people a month.

Spotlight on research

Mari Basiletti travelled from Prince Edward Island, Canada, to COTEC to present her Masters research, which was supervised by Professor Elizabeth Townsend. As it was simultaneously published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy we have made it the focus of this Spotlight on research which is a reflection on the study by Katrina Bannigan.

Keep us up to date

Did you receive this newsletter via a friend?
Want to receive your own copy?

To register, click on the link below and complete our online registration form.

Do we have your correct details?

If anything has changed please complete our online registration form.

Online registration form »

York St John University, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York, YO31 7EX, UK
+44 1904 624624 F: +44 1904 612512