{"id":204,"date":"2022-04-20T08:39:11","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T08:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/?p=204"},"modified":"2022-04-20T08:39:11","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T08:39:11","slug":"reflections-on-sapc-sw-by-charley-hobson-merrett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/2022\/04\/20\/reflections-on-sapc-sw-by-charley-hobson-merrett\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on SAPC-SW by Charley Hobson-Merrett"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reflections on SAPC-SW<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The South-West Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC-SW) conference<\/a> is a local, friendly, conference attended by a delightful mixture of practitioners and academics.\u00a0 The variety of attendees and the localised nature of the conference result in presentation content that is an interesting melting pot of clinical and PhD student projects, results from large programmes and trials, and logistical trial science\/methodological issues.\u00a0 This leads to insightful and creative conversations about the content and nature of research that can be undertaken in relation to primary care, and how to undertake it.\u00a0 Indeed, the most well received presentation I\u2019ve given at any conference was an elevator pitch at SAPC-SW 2019 discussing logistical difficulties and solutions when recruiting GP practices<\/a> to cluster randomised controlled trials (to blow my own trumpet: this won \u2018best elevator pitch\u2019 that year).<\/p>\n

SAPC-SW 2018, hosted by the University of Plymouth Community & Primary Care Research Group \u00a0(CPCRG<\/a>), was the first conference I attended as a speaker.\u00a0 As such, this conference holds a special place in my heart, and I was excited to hear of its return for 2022, hosted by our neighbour and often collaborator, the University of Exeter.\u00a0 For me, conferences are not only an opportunity to show-case our work, but also to interact with others: forging new relationships and creating new ideas.\u00a0 Therefore, I was pleased to have three abstracts<\/a> accepted for this conference:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The results of a Cochrane systematic review regarding the effectiveness of collaborative care for people with diagnoses of severe mental illness (together with our Exeter colleague, Ben Jones),<\/li>\n
  2. The Realist process evaluation of a cluster randomised controlled trial for a collaborative care intervention for people with diagnoses of severe mental illness (PARTNERS2)<\/li>\n
  3. A mixed methods scoping review of the prevalence, impact and management of fatigue and sedation side effects of antipsychotics.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I was also proud to see my colleague Debra Richards make her first ever conference presentation, sharing the quantitative results of the PARTNERS2 cluster randomised controlled trial.\u00a0 Together our presentations meant that collaborative care formed one of the major themes in the mental health room at this conference.\u00a0 This not only led to discussions surrounding the effectiveness and policy drive to implement collaborative care, but also to interesting debate regarding the limitations of, and alternatives to, randomised controlled trial methodologies in ascertaining the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in populations with long-standing conditions.\u00a0 Notably, the role of Realism in unpicking reasons for null results was well received.<\/p>\n

    Also of note in the mental health room was the continuing conversation around de-prescribing antidepressants and antipsychotics, which has been a popular research topic for both PhD students and GPs since I started attending SAPC-SW in 2018.\u00a0 With the changes in NICE guidelines regarding de-prescribing, and due to a personal interest as a result of being an unpaid carer, I continue to watch this topic with interest.\u00a0 I found the focus on qualitative understandings of patient\u2019s perspectives regarding the role of their medication and de-prescribing to be an exciting development in this area.<\/p>\n

    Due to CPCRG\u2019s focus on complex care, expertise in Realism, and increasing speciality in the researcher-in-residence evaluation model, some of our team\u2019s presentations spilled over into the \u2018miscellaneous\u2019 room.\u00a0 This was an excellent opportunity to catch up with the work of fellow researchers-in-residence, Julian Elston and Todd Chenore, and the findings of the TARS study, which aimed to assess the effectiveness of using physical activity to reduce smoking.\u00a0 This room was also a good example of how conferences can increase your awareness of seemingly tangential areas of research that can actually have a large impact on your own work.\u00a0 I was particularly struck by the work of PhD student Janice Hoang, who was researching contrasting GP training models internationally.\u00a0 Her overview of the purpose of primary care in different countries prompted some reflections amongst the collaborative care researchers regarding the appropriateness of comparing collaborative care models from countries in which primary care serves different purposes.\u00a0 This cross disciplinary thinking is, for me, what conferences are all about, and served as a great reminder of why we must continue to foster opportunities and comfortable spaces for people to share their findings.\u00a0 I look forward to SAPC-SW 2023!<\/p>\n

    Charley Hobson-Merrett, Research Fellow
    \ninterests: <\/em>improving mental health care, impacts of antipsychotics, Realism, researcher-in-residence, service evaluations, mixed methods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Reflections on SAPC-SW The South-West Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC-SW) conference is a local, friendly, conference attended by a delightful mixture of practitioners and academics.\u00a0 The variety of attendees and the localised nature of the conference result in presentation content that is an interesting melting pot of clinical and PhD student projects, results from… Continue reading Reflections on SAPC-SW by Charley Hobson-Merrett<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/communityandprimarycare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}