Staff Profile

I joined the PenARC team in January 2020 as a PhD researcher working in the Implementation Science and Mental Health Research Groups. My research is investigating the implementation of an integrated psychological medicine service in Devon to provide both mental and physical health care in a hospital setting. 

We know anxiety and depression are approximately three times more common in people attending hospital than in the general population. My research aims to:

(1) Review the models available for integrated physical and psychological care and what influences their implementation.

(2) Undertake an ethnography to gain an in-depth understanding of the experience of implementing a model, in one local hospital setting, focusing on the key influences on how decision-making and action occur to implement and sustain a new way of working.

I have experience of working on Clinical Trials across both NHS and University settings.

PhD Project:

The implementation of integrated psychological medicine services in Devon: An ethnography of change.

Other research projects:

Prospective cohort study to identify causes of depression and how depression leads to relapse in people with Ulcerative Colitis.

This is a joint project between the University of Exeter and the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital Gastroenterology department, investigating causes of depression in people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The project also explores the links between depression and worse health outcomes, including relapse, in people with IBD.

Principal Investigator - Professor Chris Dickens