We were intereviewed by Airing Pain's Paul Evans at the 2024 British Pain Society meeting, giving an update on our WITHIN study. The episode is out now.

Time Stamps: 

[00:00] Introduction by Paul Evans
Overview of Pain Concern’s work and the British Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting 2024 as the context for the interviews.

[00:45] Professor Nicole Tang on Mental Defeat
She explains how chronic pain impacts identity and self-perception, drawing analogies from animal behavior. Discusses mental defeat as a predictor of distress and its relationship with suicidal behavior.

[02:27] Vicky Sandy-Davis on Person-Centred Care
She explains diagnostic overshadowing and highlights the importance of personalized care for individuals with learning disabilities and chronic pain. Shares challenges in supporting offenders with learning disabilities in the criminal justice system.

[16:26] Ian Taverner and Sarah Harrisson discuss Patient Involvement in Research
They discuss the value of integrating lived experiences of chronic pain sufferers into research.
They highlight the gap in representation of individuals with severe pain in public involvement initiatives. and advocate for meaningful participation of patients in shaping research.

[19:25] Nicole Tang and Jenna Gillett discuss the Warwick Mental Defeat Study and how mental defeat impacts pain management and affects levels of suicidal behaviour.

[30:00] Nicole Tang and Jenna Gillett discuss challenges in communicating research outcomes – the importance of making tools and findings accessible to clinicians and researchers. They talk about plans to share the mental defeat questionnaire for broader use in healthcare.

Jenna Gillett our PhD student from WITHIN passed her viva yesterday and is now Dr Gillett. We are very proud of you! Many thanks to Frankie Maratos, Gemma Gray, and Michaela Gummerum for being such amazing examiners!

On 8th Nov, Professor Matthew Broome, Director of the Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham, gave a seminar for the Warwick Health Spotlight.

Missed the talk? Don't worry, we have the recording of the talk archived on the Health Spotlight's Mental Health and Wellbeing webpage for references.

Need a good night's sleep? Try changing how you think about it

Our hectic modern lives can often leave us feeling sleep-deprived, but what if much of a good night's sleep was down to our state of mind?

Interviewed and written by Amanda Ruggeri for BBC Future 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241014-need-a-good-nights-sleep-trying-changing-how-you-think-about-it

Congrats to Michaela and Monisha for being successfully vote to be part of hte ESRS early career network committee! Great to have your energy and new perspective represented in our profession.