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Sometimes you can be working on projects for years and you can feel that no substantial outputs are ever going to come from them. Then all of a sudden stuff happens! Sometimes the stuff is further funding, sometimes it is conference abstracts, posters or oral presentations and sometimes you get publications. That is the case here; projects I have been involved with since 2001 have finally got to the point that academic peer review journals are accepting articles for publication.

I have had the good fortune to have four articles accepted so far this year. I have written about the first three and the abstracts can be read in earlier blogs (1 - QoL & Maxillofacial Cancer Patients: 2 - Educational Impact of Pulmonary Rehabilitation: 3 - Personality as a predisposing factor for DCI) on this site and references found on the research page.

The latest article (No. 4) has been accepted for publication in the ‘Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention’ is and entitled:

The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in patients undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation and changes in PTSD symptoms following rehabilitation

Authors: Jones, RCM., Harding, SA., Chung, M., & Campbell, J.

Abstract: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a common serious condition which, although treatable, is often undetected. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of PTSD in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) referred to pulmonary rehabilitation and the impact of rehabilitation on PTSD symptoms. Design: cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys. Participants: Patients with COPD attending pulmonary rehabilitation programmes in South West England. Outcome measures:The Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS), Impact of Events scale (IES-R), the incremental shuttle walking test, Medical Outcomes Short Form 12 (SF-12), Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire (CRQ-SR). Questionnaires were completed at face to face interviews with participants one week prior to commencing pulmonary rehabilitation and at the end of the programme. 100 participants took part, mean age 68yrs; 65 male. 70% completed the pulmonary rehabilitation programme. Seventy four out of one hundred participants reported traumatic experiences, 37 of which were related to their lung disease. Eight out of 100 participants met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Participants with PTSD reported worse health status than those without PTSD. After pulmonary rehabilitation, exercise capacity and quality of life scores improved significantly, but PTSD symptom severity did not change. PTSD was present in 8% of COPD patients referred for pulmonary rehabilitation. After rehabilitation, participants with PTSD improved more in respect of anxiety and disease specific health status than those without PTSD. PTSD symptoms did not improve following rehabilitation, despite its positive effects on HADS scores, exercise and health status in this cohort.

Once again I hope you find this of interest and as always please get in touch if you want to discuss or comment about anything in the article.

Disclosure: This was originally published on TechCrunch UK, I’ve made some edits at the end in response to comment on TC, Underscore, Twitter etc.

Uploaded on March 29, 2007 by pictopedia

Its not all stovepipe hats and clay dogs in Bristol, these days its more location aware gaming, mobile media and building businesses. As a relative newcomer to the city (5yrs and loving it) this is a quick peek around some start-ups.

Two Bristol startups you will have heard about are Glasses Direct (James Murray Wells, a UWE graduate) and MyBuilder (Ryan Notz, a Bristol Uni graduate). But what else is going on…

The Watershed, a digital media & arts complex in the heart of the city, has been mixing up creativity and technology for over 20 years.The place for start-ups is their new Pervasive Media Studio, headed by Clare in partnership with HP Labs & with heavy involvement from both Bristol University & UWE. The Studio launched with it’s Media Sandbox competition. Several of the projects came from larger established companies (including Aardman, HMC, BDH, Plot, etc) but the winning project brought together two startup companies, Thought Den (Dan) and Mobile Pie (Richard), to create Happy Packages. After some early PR from the Guardian, Mobile Pie have knuckled down to turn out a number of games and have picked up some awards along the way. They’ve also since been confirmed as one of the first 4,000 iPhone developers and are working with Futurelab to find funding for an exciting e-learning project.

Another Sandbox success is the Comfort of Strangers from the eponymous Simon + Simon. Using a heavily modified mscapes platform, two teams have to ‘discover’ matched players while avoiding opponents. A soft voice in your ear is all that alerts you to the fact that ‘a dancer is nearby, you have lost a life point…’ This ARG team game has been showcased at New York’s Come Out & Play. They now organise the monthly igLab to explore collaborative and social gaming developments. 19-21 Sept they’re turning Bristol into one giant playground… everyone is playing - running, hiding, seeking, finding, escaping, tagging…. igFest.

Just north of the M5, Chris & Craig at BexMedia have been developing a video platform for mobile devices, recently expanding into interactive video after developing a mobile map & video experience for freshers to quickly acquaint themselves with Anglia Ruskin University. On a slightly bigger scale is the Visualise project from 3C Research to bring unprecedented levels of personalised streaming data & video to mobile devices at live sports events. Currently with the World Rally Championships, Nigel’s actively spinning out new startups to commercialise the software & services.

Round the beck end, The Web People started up coding websites like everyone else but Tom quickly developed a web-services management system that made it simple for him to manage lots of websites, with lots of different services, for lots of clients all in parallel. Co-founder Mark saw the opportunity, they’ve just launched an open beta, and on track for some stellar growth (clients are already beating a path to their door). Also working behind the scenes to spread and gather the word virally is Team Rubber with Andy at the helm. Though not strictly a startup, having survived the dot-com boom, Andy’s a staunch supporter and is actively helping the ‘new guys’ get off the ground.

Behind all these successes lies a growing entrepreneurial ecosystem mixing startups, future clients, partners and investors. This mixing covers everything from the fun & interesting (Dorkbot / igLab), learning & technical (Skillswap / BathCamp), business & sectoral (OpenCoffee / Media Tuesday) to University sponsored (BEN). Its not just the geeks & designers either, lawyers, accountants and exec recruiters are getting behind the start-up scene in Bristol like never before.

Update - following the TCUK comments, I’ve added some more thoughts below - Update

Matt Jukes pointed out the education leadership that Bristol has shown with the work of Futurelab and JISC in the region. He also got a name drop in for Beanbag Learning (where he’s based) and pointed up Science TV. BeanBag are getting more attention from Jemima Kiss at the Guardian’s tech blog which is great news.

Perhaps this is another focus area for Bristol to consider? There have been a couple posts on the education start-up scene including another guest post from Al Briggs on TCUK. The comments section of that post goes into some discussion on the UK education sector, including a great mini-post by David McAll from sums.co.uk. One of David’s points is the need to build relationships slowly which probably reflects most ‘real world’ applications but makes it harder to justify the hockey stick returns beloved of VCs.

I also advise Heliotrope, a start-up in the education sector. They’re based in Toronto, Canada and have been doing this slow burn relationship building for over 3 yrs (during the last 18 months we’ve been actively seeking investment). The first real success is just now beginning to take hold with a School Board in Quebec adopting Prelude for multi-school roll-out. It’ll be tight (and we’d still like the investment) but it looks like there’s a sustainable revenue model from this approach.

Bristol has a strong democracy and participatory culture, good technology and software development, and track record in educational innovation. Perhaps it would be a good primary focus for some of the city’s digital innovators? In the fields of informal learning, games as learning, soft skills, etc (i.e. non-curriculum examined subjects that translate well between geographies and school systems) there are opportunities.

With a global focus and patient investment, might this be the next big thing…?

As you may have read in my short biography (home page), I have had a long interest in the psychology of SCUBA diving. I have undertaken a couple of projects in this area and this is one of those. The work was part of my MSc in Psychological Research Methods, undertaken at the University of Plymouth, and sponsered by the Diving Diseases Research Centre (DDRC).

Krug Chamber at DDRC (www.ddrc.org)

At the time I did not intend to write it up for publication in a peer review journal, but following some positive feedback from Academics, Specalist Diving Physicians and Researchers, and the Editor of a Journal, I grasped the thistle.

Below is the abstract from the article accepted for publication by ‘Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine‘, which is ‘The combined journal of the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society’ and the ‘European Underwater and Baromedical Society’. The paper will be available in the next edition of the journal (October 2008). I hope you find it of interest and I look forward to discussing the work with anyone who wants to get in touch.

Personality as a predisposing factor for DCI: A pilot study

Authors: Sam Harding & Phil Gee

This study aimed to identify differences in personality characteristics related to Decompression Illness (DCI) in recreational SCUBA divers. A matched control group of 9 divers (without DCI) and research group of 9 divers (with DCI) were recruited. Following a chamber dive (control group), or post-treatment for DCI (research group), three psychometric scales; Locus of Control (LoC), Sensation Seeking Scale, and Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire – Revised (EPQ-R) were administered together with a Diving History Questionnaire and questions on motoring. One significant difference was identified and lay between engine sizes, with those experiencing DCI having cars with larger engines (p < .01). The data were inconsistent with previous research that suggested a relationship between sensation seeking and risk taking. Further research is needed to elucidate the relationship between diving injury and personality.

Photo by mistersnappy

This (below) is the abstract from a piece of research that has taken quite some time to complete, but that is the joy of a multi-centre study.  The paper is available online ahead of hard copy publication.  So please have a read if the abstract is of interest and feel free to ask any questions you like.

Educational impact of pulmonary rehabilitation: Lung Information Needs Questionnaire.

Authors: Jones RC, Wang X, Harding S, Bott J, Hyland M.

Respiratory Research Unit, Peninsula Medical School, Devon, 1 Davy Road, Plymouth PL6 8BX, United Kingdom.

INTRODUCTION: The Lung Information Needs Questionnaire (LINQ) assesses, from the patient’s perspective, their need for education. This questionnaire yields a total score and scores in six domains: disease knowledge, medicine, self-management, smoking, exercise and diet. The aim of this study was to assess the sensitivity of the LINQ to change before and after pulmonary rehabilitation (PR). METHOD: PR programmes across the UK recruited 158 patients (male=94; 59%). The participants completed the LINQ and other measures as used by the individual sites pre- and post-PR, including the Shuttle Walking Test, Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. RESULTS: Data were analysed on 115 patients who completed data collection pre- and post-PR. The LINQ total scores, and subscales scores across all sites improved significantly with large effect sizes, except for the smoking domain as information needs about smoking were well met prior to PR. There were similar patterns of information needs at baseline and after PR in all sites. DISCUSSION: This study shows that the LINQ is a practical tool for detecting areas where patients need education and is sensitive to change after PR. The quality of the education component of PR can be assessed using the LINQ, which could be considered as a routinely collected outcome measure in PR. The LINQ may also be a useful tool for general practitioners to assess their patients’ educational needs.