Recently, colleagues from the Oxford Health Research & Development team attended the 29th International Mental Health Nursing Research Conference, held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
The aim of the event was to share knowledge and best practice in mental health nursing research. It was attended by around 130 people in person and 70 people online and included a mix of researchers, clinicians, clinical-academics and research delivery staff from across the world.
Talks on a range of topics included the portrayal of mental health in the media, treatment approaches for mental health conditions and support for mental health nursing students and mental health nursing staff.
Debbie Moll, Research Speech and Language Therapist in the Memory and Cognition Research Delivery Team and Patient and Public Involvement Lead at the OH Clinical Research Facility and Jemima Littlejohns, Research Training and Development Manager at Oxford Health attended on the day.
They presented findings from the CoDAQ study into speech and language therapy services to support communication in people with dementia and their caregivers.
Debbie Moll said: “The conference was a fantastic opportunity to share our research into communication support for people with dementia.
“We had some interesting conversations about quality of life in relation to dementia-related communication difficulties and the associated impact on both people with the condition and their friends/relatives.”
Jemima Littlejohns said: “The event was a fantastic chance to network with people from other universities and clinical settings. It was great to see the importance of research in early mental health nursing careers highlighted.”