Full time PhD (3 years) (1031518JW)

Fulltime PhD (3 years) - £14,777 per annum

Psychology department, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.

Improving quality of life in cancer survivors: understanding how a digital behaviorchange intervention works and how to maximize its implementation in practice. 

Project Description

This project offers an exciting opportunity to complete a PhD in Health Psychology at the University of Southampton. The PhD aims to explore how a digital intervention for cancer survivors might produce its effects and to build an understanding of how to maximize implementation of digital behavior change interventions in practice. 

The number of people surviving cancer is increasing, but cancer survivors are often left with poor quality of life after treatment finishes. Cancer survivors experience problems like fatigue, distress and weight gain. Many survivors are sedentary and don’t meet guideline recommendations for a healthy diet. The supervisors have developed an online intervention which aims to help cancer survivors to make simple behavioral changes that can improve their quality of life and prevent cancer recurrence. 

The current PhD studentship aims to: 1) Use mixed-methods to explore the experiences of cancer survivors who have used the digital intervention to understand more about how the intervention is perceived and how it might work. 2) To explore the experiences of healthcare staff who have provide support to patients who are using the digital intervention to understand potential barriers and facilitators to implementation in practice. 3) To conduct a systematic review examining barriers to implementation of digital behavior change interventions in practice.

Supervision

Dr.Katherine Bradbury 

Prof.Lucy Yardley

Prof.Alison Richardson

Candidates must have a first or strong upper second class degree in psychology, and an MSc in health psychology or equivalent research experience. Details on how to apply are available from psycpgr@soton.ac.uk. Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Katherine Bradbury (kjb1e08@soton.ac.uk). 

Closing Date: 09 Aug 2018
Post Type: PhD Studentship (Funded)