Austyn Snowden

• PhD
• Chair at Edinburgh Napier University

Receiving a prostate cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming. This can negatively impact the recall of medical information at different phases of the radiation oncology (RO) care pathway, making communication with the care team difficult. Research shows that 40-80% of information discussed during a medical appointment with cancer patients is forgotten...

Introduction Preventative spend is a global health and social care strategy. Improving Cancer Journeys (ICJ) is a proactive, holistic, multidisciplinary project consistent with this agenda, currently being rolled out across Scotland and parts of UK. ICJ helps people with cancer access whatever support they need to mitigate their most pressing conce...

Design Analyst blinded, parallel, multi-centre, randomised controlled trial (RCT). Participants People with confirmed diagnoses of cancer (head and neck, skin or colorectal) attending follow-up consultation 3 months post-treatment between 2015 and 2020. Intervention Holistic needs assessment (HNA) or care as usual during consultation. Objective...

Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1558/hscc.26043 A diverse range of topics are covered in this issue of Health and Social Care Chaplaincy, namely: (i) end of life care, (ii) chaplaincy boundaries, (iii) moral injury, (iv) suicide, and (v) the increasingly important issue of electronic patient records. This issue also includes, once again, a number...

Background Muslims constitute the largest, fastest growing religious minority in the UK. Globally, nurses are legally, morally and ethically obliged to provide non-discriminatory, person-centred, culturally sensitive care. This obligation includes supporting people with their religious needs where appropriate, but there is evidence this is not alwa...

Increasing evidence on men's involvement in informal, unpaid care has not transferred to the research literature around men's experiences. The aim was to explore the perspectives of men who are caring for a female partner with cancer over 1 year. Longitudinal narrative interviews (n = 22) were conducted with eight men in the UK from 2018 to 2019. P...

Health is holistic, but health services are often not. Primary care is the first point of contact for patients in the UK, and at least two in every three present with complex bio-psycho-socio-economic issues. In Scotland, the Community Chaplaincy Listening (CCL) service was created to see if chaplains could help. CCL involves specially trained chap...

Physical activity (PA) has been shown to be beneficial for physical and mental wellbeing. However, there is evidence to indicate people with mental health conditions are significantly less active than the general population. The aim of the research is to evaluate the effectiveness of Active Living Becomes Achievable (ALBA), a behaviour change inter...

Background Vascular access devices (VADs) are essential for delivery of intravenous therapies. There are notable gaps in the literature regarding a focus on patient experience and meaning-making related to living with a VAD, specifically a central venous access device (CVAD). Aims To explore how patients make sense of living with a CVAD. Methods...

Background: Vascular access devices (VADs) are essential for delivery of intravenous therapies. There are notable gaps in the literature regarding a focus on patient experience and meaning-making related to living with a VAD, specifically a central venous access device (CVAD). Aims: To explore how patients make sense of living with a CVAD. Methods:...

If it is not charted: it did not happen." The charting of healthcare chap-laincy contacts in patient files has been controversially discussed in the literature in recent years. In particular, entries in digital medical records raise questions among pastoral care managers about confidentiality, data protection regulations and managerial interests. T...

Background Vascular access devices (VADs) are essential for delivery of intravenous therapies. There are notable gaps in the literature regarding a focus on patient experience and meaning-making related to living with a VAD, specifically a central venous access device (CVAD). Aims To explore how patients make sense of living with a CVAD. Methods...

Many factors influence the success of a course of treatment prescribed by a veterinary surgeon. Even if the correct diagnosis is made and the most effective treatment prescribed, the therapeutic outcome may not be optimal if the owner does not administer the medication as prescribed. Some pet owners will give all the medication prescribed for their...

Chaplains help people face some of the most complex, intractable and traumatic issues in their lives. Spiritual care works. Unfortunately, spiritual needs are rarely met in health and social care because a) spiritual distress is not recognised as such, and b) chaplain interventions are undervalued and misunderstood. The Scottish Patient Reported Ou...

This chapter will help you recognise more about who you are, what your talents are and what self-care needs you may have over time. We highlight a number of factors that affect us when we work in the healthcare professions, and nursing and midwifery in particular, such as the physical, mental and emotional dimensions of care. It is necessary to exa...

Aims and objectives: To explore how newly qualified nurses' work experiences are constructed through the interplay between self, workplace and home-life influencing their retention. Background: Nurses are critical to achieving the goal of universal health coverage. However, shortages of nursing staff are endemic. Of particular concern, newly qua...

Chaplains’ unique contribution is to healthcare is to respond to the spiritual, religious and pastoral needs of patients and staff. This is their sole purpose, to provide a presence and space to meet individual need and promote healing, even when cure isn’t possible. Their value is priceless to families in desperate times. However, despite growing...

In moving toward professionalising spiritual care in the healthcare system, as an equal partner in whole person care, it has become increasingly important to develop an evidence base for spiritual care interventions, their value and longer-term outcomes for those receiving this care. This study utilised hard copy questionnaires across five Australi...

Physical activity is beneficial for mental health, but people with mental health issues are less likely to be physically active than the general population. Socially prescribed programmes of activity are rarely adhered to, with high levels of drop out, and the proportion of people who continue after programmes have finished is even smaller. Lasting...

Background Cancer impacts on patients and their families across a range of different domains. For that reason, optimal cancer care has moved away from a disease-centric focus to a more holistic approach in order to proactively support people with their individual needs and concerns. While international policy clearly advocates this agenda, implemen...

Background: All studies need to integrate their findings back into the literature to explain how the new knowledge changes understanding. This process can be anxiety-provoking, especially when new literature appears to threaten the originality of the study. Aim: To reintroduce 'concurrent analysis' (CA) - a method of synthesising relevant litera...

Aim To explore levels of stigma in students of all fields of nursing and midwifery at different years and examine the impact of exposure to people with mental illness. Design A cross‐sectional survey was used. Methods The Community Attitudes to Mental Illness questionnaire was administered to all branches of student nurses (adult health, mental h...

Background Internationally, clinicians face increased demand, pressure on resources and unmet patient needs. A community social support service was co-located within cancer clinics in Glasgow, Scotland to help address some of these needs. Aim To analyse the impact of the service on clinical staff and to propose an explanatory theory of change. Me...

Background Cancer impacts on patients and their families across a range of different domains. For that reason, optimal cancer care has moved away from a disease-centric focus to a more holistic approach in order to proactively support people with their individual needs and concerns. While international policy clearly advocates this agenda, implemen...

Background Optimal cancer care has moved away from a disease-centric focus to a more holistic approach in order to proactively support people with their individual needs and concerns. While international policy clearly advocates this agenda, implementation into routine care is limited. Therefore, relevant interventions that measurably improve patie...

Background: Cancer impacts on patients and their families across a range of different domains. For that reason, optimal cancer care has moved away from a disease-centric focus to a more holistic approach in order to proactively support people with their individual needs and concerns. While international policy clearly advocates this agenda, impleme...

Objective: There is growing global evidence for stark inequalities in the physical health status and life-expectancy of people with a mental health diagnosis. In most cases, physical activity (PA) is one of the most effective methods of maintaining physical and mental health. However, people with mental health challenges are less likely to adhere t...

Background the literature on the patient experience of living with a central venous access device (CVAD) is growing, but remains sparse. It suggests that patients accept having a CVAD as it should reduce episodes of repeated cannulations. However, a recent doctoral study found the reality did not live up to this hope. Aim the study objective was t...

Objective “Improving the Cancer Journey” (ICJ) is an original, community‐based, multidisciplinary service offering holistic support to people diagnosed with cancer in Scotland. It is the first service of its kind in the UK. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of people who have used this service. Method Twenty service...

Poster was presented at SPARC 2018, and was awarded 3rd Prize in the Student Poster Competition.

Background It is increasingly internationally recognized that a cancer diagnosis impacts on people practically and financially as well as physically and psychologically. It is less clear what to do about this. This study introduces an original community service designed to mitigate this wider impact. Nonclinical “link officers” use holistic needs a...

Death rattle is one of the most common symptoms in dying patients and therefore relevant to almost all health care settings worldwide. A recent literature review showed that there is no consensus regarding risk factors whose identification would facilitate early or prophylactic interventions. This research examined new potential risk factors beside...

People often attend primary care with sub-clinical or non-medical issues such as bereavement, distress, or loneliness. Often what is needed is someone to listen, but GP appointments are inappropriate for this. Community Chaplaincy Listening (CCL) is a listening service delivered by chaplains in Scotland, developed to help people in primary care wit...

Aim Identification of risk factors predicting the development of death rattle. Background Respiratory tract secretions, often called death rattle, are among the most common symptoms in dying patients around the world. It is unknown whether death rattle causes distress in patients, but it has been globally reported that distress levels can be high...

Background: Emotional intelligence in nursing is of global interest. International studies identify that emotional intelligence influences nurses' work and relationships with patients. It is associated with compassion and care. Nursing students scored higher on measures of emotional intelligence compared to students of other study programmes. The...

Aim: To identify effective treatments and risk factors associated with death rattle in adults at the end of life. Background: The presence of noisy, pooled respiratory tract secretions is among the most common symptoms in dying patients around the world. It is unknown if 'death rattle' distresses patients, but it can distress relatives and clini...

Around the world, chaplains provide specialist spiritual care for people with complex healthcare needs. If the nature of chaplain interventions was better understood then multidisciplinary colleagues could both improve their own skills in spiritual care and better understand when to refer people to chaplains. A survey was constructed to establish w...

The aim of this case study is to illustrate how prescribing decisions can be enhanced through the use of systematic consultation, reflection on practice and relevant information seeking. The enhanced Calgary-Cambridge model was used to structure the consultation. Reflection on practice was achieved using Gibbs' model. The case study involved a 74-y...

Aim: To examine the relationship between baseline emotional intelligence and prior caring experience with completion of pre-registration nurse and midwifery education. Background: Selection and retention of nursing students is a global challenge. Emotional intelligence is well conceptualised, measurable and an intuitive prerequisite to nursing v...

Aims and objectives: To explore the preparation that mental health nurses receive to address sexual health in practice. Background: People who use the mental health services often have complex sexual health needs. Mental health nurses are well placed to offer support. However, this rarely happens in practice, and therefore, people's sexual healt...

Aim To develop a typology and screening tool for gatekeeping behaviours by nurses responsible for recruitment in palliative care research. Design Concurrent analysis. Method Two focus groups were conducted in 2015 with nine qualified hospice community nurses involved in recruitment to a trial in palliative care. The literature was searched for re...

Chaplains are employed by health organizations around the world to support patients in recognizing and addressing their spiritual needs. There is currently no generalizable measure of the impact of these interventions and so the clinical and strategic worth of chaplaincy is difficult to articulate. This article introduces the Scottish PROM, an orig...

An online survey was conducted by twelve professional chaplain organizations to assess chaplains' attitudes about and involvement in research. A total of 2,092 chaplains from 23 countries responded to the survey. Over 80% thought research was definitely important and nearly 70% thought chaplains should definitely be research literate. Just over 40%...

Background Globally, cancer rates are increasing. In Scotland, it is estimated that 2 in 5 people will develop cancer in their lifetime. Therefore, this is crucial time to provide personalised care and support to individuals affected by cancer. In response to this a community based supportive cancer service was launched in Glasgow, Scotland. The ai...

Aims and objectives: To explore the impact of implementing an electronic health record system on staff at a Scottish hospice. Background: Electronic health records are broadly considered preferable to paper-based systems. However, changing from one system to the other is difficult. This study analysed the impact of this change in a Scottish hosp...

The aim of this review was to identify the factors associated with positive experiences in non‐professional carers of someone with a cancer diagnosis. A systematic search of the following electronic databases was undertaken: Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SocINDEX and Medline. Literature was searched using terms relating to cancer, caring and...

First paper from my PhD. Currently in press.

Background: Reports of poor nursing care have focused attention on values based selection of candidates onto nursing programmes. Values based selection lacks clarity and valid measures. Previous caring experience might lead to better care. Emotional intelligence (EI) might be associated with performance, is conceptualised and measurable. Objectiv...

Macmillan Cancer Support UK have developed an electronic Holistic Needs Assessment (eHNA) to: (1) help people living with cancer express all their needs, (2) help those helping them better target support. eHNA consists of 48 items each ranked from zero (no problem) to 10. There has been no psychometric analysis of this tool and so its validity and...

To examine the construct validity of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Short form. Emotional intelligence involves the identification and regulation of our own emotions and the emotions of others. It is therefore a potentially useful construct in the investigation of recruitment and retention in nursing and many questionnaires have bee...

Introduction: People living with and beyond cancer are vulnerable to a number of physical, functional and psychological issues. Undertaking a holistic needs assessment (HNA) is one way to support a structured discussion of patients' needs within a clinical consultation. However, there is little evidence on how HNA impacts on the dynamics of the cl...

This discussion paper presents a review of holistic needs assessment (HNA) in the care of patients with cancer. HNA entails a structured review of patient needs as articulated by the patient. This discussion then leads to a care plan grounded in issues pertinent to that patient. Despite policy guidance advocating its use, there are barriers to over...

Worldwide, more nurses are undertaking doctoral studies now than at any other time. However, there is little high-quality evidence focused on investigating successful completion of such studies. Instead there is considerable literature dedicated to untested assumptions about the nature of the supervisory relationship. This article reflects on three...

Background Employee engagement is a fundamental component of quality healthcare. In order to provide empirical data of engagement in NHS Scotland an Employee Engagement Index was co-constructed with staff. `iMatter¿ consists of 25 Likert questions developed iteratively from the literature and a series of validation events with NHS Scotland staff. T...

Background Emotional Intelligence (EI), previous caring experience and mindfulness training may have a positive impact on nurse education. More evidence is needed to support the use of these variables in nurse recruitment and retention. Objective To explore the relationship between EI, gender, age, programme of study, previous caring experience an...

Aim: To show that the ethics governance process in the UK is not necessarily conducive to innovative investigation by doctoral students. Background: Doctoral students need to demonstrate an original contribution to knowledge. This paper critically evaluates the concept of knowledge in relation to the concept of research paradigms. The purpose of...

The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is an electrical medical device designed to monitor the electrical activity of the heart and is set to deliver a programmed, corrective defibrillatory discharge, or shock, on encountering abnormal cardiac rhythms. Adjustment factors: Individual characteristics, including age, gender, support and pers...

The aim of this project is to improve understanding of the spiritual needs of inpatients and to establish how well these are recognized and met. Interviews were carried out with 13 patients, who had seen a chaplain, to ascertain their spiritual needs. Nursing staff were interviewed about their perception of patients’ spiritual needs, and the referr...

Using a facilitated discussion forum, a group of mental health nurse consultants in Scotland, along with senior clinical nurse leaders, sought to better understand their collective research contribution along with potential barriers that may exist. The underlying belief was that research is important and an essential aspect of the nurse consultant...

AimTo report an analysis of the concept of concordance. Background Adherence-based medicines interventions are known to be of limited success. Concordance appears to offer an alternative approach consistent with person-centred approaches to decision-making. However, the application of the principle of concordance appears inconsistent. This article...

Empathy is a key dimension within the philosophical architecture of everyday mental health nursing practice. Surprisingly, there have been few investigations on this important psychological domain in mental health practitioners. This investigation sought to determine the relationship between empathy and gender, length of service and area of work in...

This article delineates concordance and adherence; two fundamental positions pertaining to the role of the nurse in medicine management. Taking the form of a debate, it uses mental health nursing to describe the role and function of concordance and adherence in practice. Each author presents their case and responds briefly to the other in order to...

Aims and objectives: To demonstrate that concordance can be operationalised to the benefit of patients. Concordance can be understood as a composite of knowledge, health beliefs and collaboration. Background: In discussing any clinical decision, it would be ideal if different views could be incorporated to reach the most coherent decision. This...

Background and aim: Measuring women’s satisfaction with their birth experience has been problematic. Recently, an attempt has been made to capture birth satisfaction’s generalised meaning and incorporate it into an evidenced-based tool. Standard procedures for validation have limitations. Qualitative techniques such as domain analysis offer an alte...

Despite global support for the ideal of shared decision making, its enactment remains difficult in practice. The UK charity, Macmillan Cancer Support, attempted to incorporate the principles of shared decision making within a programme of distress management in Scotland. Distress management begins by completing the Distress Thermometer (DT). Althou...

Concurrent analysis (CA) is a process of synthesizing conceptually equivalent data for the purpose of producing a coherent and predictive model in social science. The process of CA is detailed. In short, CA uses Thagard's concept of coherence as a method of explicating links between mental representations. The product is a wide analysis of all pert...

This article discusses a case study describing discontinuation symptoms relating to the abrupt withdrawal of the antidepressant venlafaxine. The article explores alternative explanations for the symptoms presented, and highlights the importance of systematic and collaborative assessment. This case study shows that without these essential aspects of...

This is the first of two articles examining the role and function of concordance in clinical medicine management. It records the development of a questionnaire designed to help facilitate a training needs analysis for registered mental health nurses. The purpose of this is to generate ward-based training in concordance that is clinically meaningful...

This article examines the psychological and physical impact of denial of illness related to heart disease. The most obvious sequelae entail avoidance of help-seeking behaviour and the maintenance of risk-taking behaviour such as poor diet, lack of exercise and smoking. A definition of denial is presented, followed by a description of the perceived...

This article describes the construction and impact of an education module designed to improve medicine management in mental health nursing. In particular, it justifies the need for such education and illustrates the impact that it can have on knowledge and understanding. It examines a specific example of translating theory into practice by presenti...

This paper suggests that there is an imbalance between the ideal and the actual palliative care provision for some older people living and dying in care homes in Scotland. Successive studies demonstrate that care home residents are increasingly frail and disabled. Many experience challenging physical and psychosocial symptoms which could benefit fr...

This article describes the construction of a tool to measure concordance in clinical practice. The second of two parts, it details the strategic background underpinning concordance and expands the rationale as this relates to the construction of individual items within the evaluation tool used and described. Cribb (2011) considers that while policy...

Self-poisoning by ingestion of antidepressants is a common method of suicide. Although tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) are no longer the first choice treatment for depression they are still commonly taken in overdose causing poisoning and admission to acute care. This article describes the mechanism of toxicity and the requisite physical care. It...

This article provides evidence to suggest that mental health nurses may not be as competent in medicines management as they believe themselves to be. A psychological model of skills awareness is used throughout the article to offer a theoretical explanation of this putative deficit and provide discussion of the possible causes. Training directed to...

This article provides evidence to suggest that mental health nurses may not be as competent in medicines management as they believe themselves to be. A psychological model of skills awareness is used throughout the article to offer a theoretical explanation of this putative deficit and provide discussion of the possible causes. Training directed to...

This paper reports original research on choice and control in childbirth. Eight women were interviewed as part of a wider investigation into locus of control in women with pre-labour rupture of membranes at term (PROM). The following study uses concurrent analysis to sample and analyse narrative aspects of relevant literature along with these inter...

Schizophrenia remains a contentious concept. Kraepelin’s presumption that schizophrenia has a biological origin still predominates despite consistently inconclusive evidence. Current research consequently favours finding a cure as opposed to focusing on more pragmatic solutions. Nevertheless, alternative viewpoints are gaining more credence, as the...

The Distress Thermometer (DT) is a well validated screening tool, demonstrably sensitive and reasonably specific to the construct of distress in cancer. Its brevity makes it ideal to incorporate into a system of distress management. To ascertain how far this idea has been developed in practice, and to support future research, a literature review wa...

This article was inspired by the need to revisit medicine-taking within the context of recovery-focused practice in mental health. Practice based on compliance is unlikely to succeed and is not resonant with the principles of recovery. Mental wellbeing associated with recovery is promoted, however, when service users and mental health workers colla...

This study develops an original method of qualitative analysis coherent with its interpretivist principles. The objective is to increase the likelihood of achieving generalisability and so improve the chance of the findings being translated into practice. Good qualitative research depends on coherent analysis of different types of data. The limitat...

This paper develops an interpretation of the impact of mental health nurse prescribing in the UK. A constructivist-grounded theory methodology was applied to 13 semi-structured interviews with mental health clinicians and service users. The same interpretivist methodology was applied to the literature. Thirty-two practising UK mental health nurse p...

There is increasing concern that mental health nurses in UK are inadequately trained in medicines management. Recommended solutions entail proposals for further training to improve safety for service users. Although fundamentally important, these organizational approaches lack a conceptual framework to explain how individual practitioners develop c...

The classification of schizophrenia is currently under review in a coordinated worldwide consultation for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD 11)--the standard manuals for psychiatric classification. Classification can seem remote from nurses by appearing to be the...