In this blog we want to share an exciting update about the Making Positive Moves (MPM) project. We want to tell you about an important milestone we have reached in this project, what it involved, how long it took us and what were some of our challenges. Keeping reading as towards the end of the blog you will also get a glimpse of what the MPM team are currently doing.
In this blog we want to share an exciting update about the Making Positive Moves (MPM) project. We want to tell you about an important milestone we have reached in this project, what it involved, how long it took us and what were some of our challenges. Keeping reading as towards the end of the blog you will also get a glimpse of what the MPM team are currently doing.
The exciting update is that we have now finished the recruitment and data collection stage of our project. This is an important achievement for the team and a huge step forward for the project. Before going through what data collection involved and the recruitment numbers, we will provide a brief context.
We aimed to find out what support people with learning disabilities might need to live in their own home after moving out of hospital under the Transforming Care programme. In 2020 we started recruiting people with learning disabilities who had moved under the Transforming Care programme from various NHS sites across England. We have spoken to people who have moved out of assessment and treatment units, psychiatric or mental health hospitals and forensic units. People had to have lived in their home in the community for at least six months, so they could tell us more about what is helping them and what factors makes it more difficult or make readmission likely. Each participant had two interviews at the first time point (Time 1), this was for them to talk about their lives, what they find helpful or difficult and to reflect on the process of moving out of hospital. After at least one year we went back and did another two interviews at the second time point (Time 2). The reason for interviewing at two time points was to see whether things have changed overtime. Participants also had the chance to have a Key Support Person (e.g., a family member or a carer) for the second interviews at both time points.
Recruitment numbers
Initially, 24 people with learning disabilities and 24 Key Support People consented to take part in our research. However, both at Time 1 and at Time 2 some of our participants withdrew from the study and this was for various reasons (e.g., not feeling well to continue, not being interested to complete the study and the length of time it takes to complete the study). Of the 24 people with learning disabilities who consented, 21 of them fully completed the Time 1 interviews and 17 of them fully completed Time 2 interviews. We finished all our recruitment and data collection by mid-June 2023. Although we have not reached our target number which was to have Time 1 and Time 2 data from 20 people with learning disabilities, we have done lots of interviews and have enough information to answer our research questions, and this is something which our steering group have also agreed on.
Challenges recruiting
Recruitment was not easy and had its own challenges. As we were recruiting during COVID our recruitment suffered significant delay especially during and following peak waves of COVID and lockdown. This was for lots of reasons, including difficulty contacting busy NHS clinicians who could check if participants were eligible and difficulty contacting support staff as many homes were already understaffed due to COVID related absences. Some participants also had limited access to technology for virtual meetings. Even after the peak waves of COVID our study was still affected due to people with learning disabilities being particularly affected by COVID, and the slower return to face-to-face contact.
What is happening now at Making Positive Moves
As recruitment and data collection has finished, we are working hard on analysing the data we have collected. The team are also busy with attending conferences, networking with individuals, groups and organisations who are interested in our research and could possibly help implement our research findings and outputs. We are also reaching out to other research teams within the same field and much more.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. We hope it has provided you with insight into our recruitment and data collection process.
If you have any thoughts and comments, we would love to hear them – please get in touch
