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Lived experiences of social support in Paralympic swimmers: A protocol for a qualitative study.

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION:Over the past decade, there has been an increase in awareness of and investment into disability sport as a result of the 'Paralympic Movement'. The provision of personal and professional support to elite athletes is important for the well-being and success of the athlete, with various studies advocating a holistic approach to performance enhancement. However, little is known about social support experiences in elite para-swimming. Swimming is a popular Paralympic sport and the British para swimmers have been very successful in recent years, most recently winning 47 medals at Rio 2016. This study will be the first to explore the lived experiences of British Paralympic swimmers with respect to the personal and professional support available, perceived use of the support network and the influence it has on well-being and performance. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:A hermeneutic phenomenological study will be undertaken using a subtle-realist paradigmatic view. A purposive sample of British Paralympic swimmers will be recruited to enable exploration of social support experiences. In-depth semistructured interviews will explore participants' experiences of being an elite para-athlete, their support network, the social support available and how they perceive it relates to their well-being and performance. Strategies including reflexivity and member checking will be used to ensure trustworthiness. Data will be analysed following the Framework Method; a seven-stage process used for qualitative data analysis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:This study has ethical approval (ERN_20-0344) granted by the University of Birmingham in April 2020. The findings of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and disseminated to key stakeholders in elite para-sport to inform support services and improve athlete well-being and performance.

SUBMITTER: Aitchison B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7526310 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Lived experiences of social support in Paralympic swimmers: A protocol for a qualitative study.

Aitchison Beth B Soundy Andrew A Martin Paul P Rushton Alison A Heneghan Nicola R NR

BMJ open 20200929 9

<h4>Introduction</h4>Over the past decade, there has been an increase in awareness of and investment into disability sport as a result of the 'Paralympic Movement'. The provision of personal and professional support to elite athletes is important for the well-being and success of the athlete, with various studies advocating a holistic approach to performance enhancement. However, little is known about social support experiences in elite para-swimming. Swimming is a popular Paralympic sport and t ...[more]

PMID: 32994258

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Project description:The International Paralympic Committee requires their member sports to develop a classification system that is sport-specific, meaning that the specific 'class' in which an athlete competes should be suitable for the degree to which the athlete's impairment affects performance in that particular sport. However, swimmers with vision impairment (VI) currently compete in classes that were developed on the basis of legal definitions of blindness, failing to consider how vision impacts swimming performance. The aim of this study was to establish expert guidance on the specific requirements for a sport-specific system of classification for VI swimming. A three-round Delphi review was conducted with a panel of 16 people with expertise in VI swimming either as an athlete, coach, administrator, or scientist. There was clear consensus (86%) among the panel that the current classification system used for VI swimming fails to fulfill the aim of minimizing the impact of VI on the outcome of competition. Particularly, the panel agreed that there are a range of aspects of visual function (e.g., depth perception and contrast sensitivity) that are important for optimal swimming performance, yet are not assessed using the current classification system. The panel also identified nine performance components of a swimming race that are mostly likely to be affected by VI. Interestingly, these were spread across all four major segments (start, clean swim, turn, and finish), and weren't necessarily those performance determinants generally used by performance analysts and coaches. There was also strong agreement that the age at which VI is acquired will substantially impact the ability of a swimmer to reach their full potential in the pool. The main implication is that changes are required to the way that swimmers with VI are classified for para-sport competition. Clear guidance has been provided for how to further the development of an evidence-based classification system.

Project description:Conflict-affected women and girls living in protracted forced displacement settings are vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Yet, little is known about the risk factors for and lived experiences of STIs in complex humanitarian settings, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where STIs have long been understudied. This qualitative study adapts the social ecological model to characterize the multi-level risks for and lived experiences of STIs among Syrian refugee women resettled in an urban refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. Adopting a community-based sampling strategy, community health workers, who were refugee women from the camp, recruited and conducted in-depth interviews (IDIs) with 30 adult Syrian refugee women. Data were analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological approach and thematically organized according to the levels of the social ecological model. We identified a confluence of individual, interpersonal, community-based, and societal vulnerabilities to STIs, including extreme poverty and insecurity, patriarchal gender norms, stigma, sexual exploitation and trafficking, poor healthcare accessibility, intimate partner violence, including marital rape, transactional sex, sexual harassment, social isolation, and internalized stigma. Participants described experiencing bothersome symptoms and sequelae of advanced and untreated STIs in the setting of limited access to health services and challenges with engaging their partners in STI treatment, largely due to STI stigma. These novel findings suggest dynamic, interrelated social and health disparities across all social ecological levels influencing refugee women's sexual health, including their risk of STIs. Comprehensive, multi-sectorial interventions, which transcend traditional public health methods and which adopt a sexual well-being approach, are urgently needed to address systemic and intrapersonal violence against refugee women, examine and mitigate the burden of STIs, and ensure sexual justice and health equity in this protracted forced displacement setting.

Project description:BackgroundFundamental to the success of clinical research that involves human participants is the quality of the data that is generated. To ensure data quality, clinical trials must comply with the Good Clinical Practice guideline which recommends data monitoring. To date, the guideline is broad, requires technology for enforcement, follows strict industry standards, mostly designed for drug-registration trials and based on informal consensus. It is also unknown what challenges clinical trials and researchers face in implementing data monitoring procedures. Thus, this study aimed to describe researcher experiences with data quality monitoring in clinical trials.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured telephone interviews following a guided-phenomenological approach. Participants were recruited from the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry and were researchers affiliated with a listed clinical study. Each transcript was analysed with inductive thematic analysis before thematic categorisation of themes from all transcripts. Primary, secondary and subthemes were categorised according to the emerging relationships.ResultsData saturation were reached after interviewing seven participants. Five primary themes, two secondary themes and 21 subthemes in relation to data quality monitoring emerged from the data. The five primary themes included: education and training, ways of working, working with technology, working with data, and working within regulatory requirements. The primary theme 'education and training' influenced the other four primary themes. While 'working with technology' influenced the 'way of working'. All other themes had reciprocal relationships. There was no relationship reported between 'working within regulatory requirements' and 'working with technology'. The researchers experienced challenges in meeting regulatory requirements, using technology and fostering working relationships for data quality monitoring.ConclusionClinical trials implemented a variety of data quality monitoring procedures tailored to their situation and study context. Standardised frameworks that are accessible to all types of clinical trials are needed with an emphasis on education and training.

Project description:IntroductionThe South Asian population is the UK's largest and fastest growing minority ethnic group. There is evidence to suggest the lay understanding of postnatal psychiatric illnesses of this group may fall outside the purview of Western biomedical perspectives. Alternative explanations include psychosocial, cultural and spiritual factors. Approaching psychiatric illnesses through a social perspective includes gaining insight to the patient's subjective experiences and understandings via qualitative inquiry. The objectives of this qualitative study are to explore South Asian women's narrative of living with a severe postnatal psychiatric illness and experiences of Perinatal Mental Health Services, care and support.Methods and analysisData collection is ongoing and will continue until 31 December 2018. Participants will be identified and recruited from Perinatal Mental Health Services in Birmingham and London. Eligible participants will be English speaking South Asian females aged 18 years or above with the capacity to give written informed consent. Participants are clinically diagnosed with a severe postnatal psychiatric illness. This qualitative study uses individual in-depth face-to-face interviews that aim to last 1 hour. Interviews will be audio recorded with participants' permission. Interview audio recordings will be transcribed verbatim and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The primary goal of IPA is for the researcher to closely study and interpret how individuals make sense of their life experiences in a particular context by drawing on the fundamental principles of phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography.Ethics and disseminationThe University of Birmingham, the South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee and the Health Research Authority have approved this study (approvals date: 18-12-2017 ref: 17/WM/0350). Local capability and capacity have been confirmed from Trust Research and Development departments. The researchers plan to publish the results from this study in journals and present findings at academic conferences.

Project description:IntroductionUp to 1 in 4 pregnancies and 1 in 20 subsequent pregnancies end in miscarriage. Despite such prevalence the psychosocial effects are often unrecognised and unsupported. In the absence of any biomedical sequelae among men such marginalisation may be intensified. Men living through multiple miscarriages may also find any grief or anxiety intensified by loss of hope for future parenthood, but robust qualitative studies of these experiences are limited. We aim to rectify the deficiency.Methods and analysisOur qualitative study will adopt the sounds of silence framework designed by Serrant-Green to hear the voices of populations possibly marginalised. We will listen and learn from 30 to 50 men with a history of two or more miscarriages. The research participants will be recruited from a recurrent miscarriage clinic at a large tertiary hospital in England, and from advertisements to be disseminated by the project sponsor and miscarriage charities.Individual telephone interviews supported by a semistructured discussion guide will be audio-recorded, transcribed and anonymised. The transcriptions and any field notes will be interpreted by the framework method of Ritchie and Lewis embedded within the sounds of silence framework. Tentative findings will be presented to research participants in face-to-face focus group discussion, to enable member synthesis to enhance authenticity. The focus group discussion will be audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and similarly interpreted to contribute to our final synthesis.Ethics and disseminationThe protocol of this project received a favourable opinion from the West Midlands South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee (16/WM/0423). Results will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences, and disseminated via newsletters and social media of our clinical collaborators and miscarriage charities. Outputs are anticipated to inform future policy and practice in the management of multiple miscarriages.Trial registration numberISRCTN 21828561.

Dataset Information

Lived experiences of social support in Paralympic swimmers: A protocol for a qualitative study.

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Lived experiences of social support in Paralympic swimmers: A protocol for a qualitative study.

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