James Elander

University of Derby · School of Sciences

Objectives The study aimed to examine the impact of incorporating Buddhist ethics-based practices versus Buddhist ethics- and wisdom-based practices in an 8-week mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) on prosocial behaviour. Method Changes in behaviour were evaluated through the subcategories of monetary donation, prosocial attitudes, and volunteeri...

People with Klinefelter syndrome (KS/XXY) may be at higher risk of gender dysphoria than the general population and gender diversity needs greater recognition and consideration in services for people affected. This study aimed to give systematic insights into experiences of gender diversity among people with KS/XXY, which could inform more person‐c...

Nonattachment is a key positive element of several psychotherapeutic approaches, including mindfulness-based interventions. However, it has been defined in the academic literature largely as a construct of negation, whereby one should not become attached to objects, people, or experiences. This approach may foster resistance to nonattachment in gen...

Objective: To examine the extent to which pain acceptance, pain catastrophising and alexithymia moderate associations between pain intensity and psychological pain medication dependence. Methods: Participants (106 hospital outpatients with chronic spinal pain) completed the Leeds Dependence Questionnaire (LDQ) to measure psychological dependence on...

The objective of this evaluative systematic review was to analyse the impact of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) that incorporate Buddhist wisdom practices on prosocial behaviour, and provide insights into their underlying mechanism, potential benefits, and applications. A systematic literature search was conducted using three electronic data...

Introduction Among people with bleeding disorders (PwBD), pain is a major problem and pain treatments are often ineffective. Understanding of psychological factors involved in pain processing is limited. Maladaptive pain attitudes are associated with worse pain outcomes and adaptive pain attitudes are associated with better outcomes in high pain co...

Background Long COVID (LC) compromises work ability (WA). Female worker WA has been more adversely impacted than WA in men. Exploration of lived experiences could elucidate the WA support required. Aims To explore the working conditions and circumstances experienced as affecting sustained WA amongst female workers with LC, to help mitigate workles...

Mindfulness is said to be a connecting thread between an ancient philosophy on the one hand and a contemporary psychological practice on the other. However, some contemporary mindfulness practices have arguably become so disconnected from their roots in Buddhist ethics and wisdom principles that the fundamental essence of the practice is no longer...

Chairwork is a central component in Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT). Despite its importance, there has been no prior research on the relational factors underpinning the application of chairwork in CFT. There is also a general paucity of research on the role of the therapeutic relationship in chairwork across modalities. This paper analyses data fr...

Objectives: Haemodialysis extends life for people with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) worldwide, but it imposes significant psychosocial burdens and there is little evidence about successful adjustment. This study aimed to improve understanding of successful psychosocial adjustment to in-centre haemodialysis (ICHD; dialysis in a hospital or satel...

This article explores the emotional experiences of drug- and/or alcohol-using parents who have child protective Social Services involvement. Research suggests that protective processes can reduce children’s experience of poor outcomes whilst parents undergo treatment for substance misuse. Semi-structured interviews combined with photovoice and jour...

Purpose This study aims to reflect on ways that the experiences of vulnerable users of drug and alcohol services can inform social work practice and policy to improve treatment engagement and mitigate negative responses to interventions. Design/methodology/approach The research used semi-structured interviews and photovoice in an interpretative ph...

Background: The apparent functional impact of post-COVID-19 syndrome has workability implications for large segments of the working-age population. Aims: To understand obstacles and enablers around self-reported workability of workers following COVID-19, to better guide sustainable workplace accommodations. Methods: An exploratory online surve...

Background: People receiving in-centre haemodialysis (ICHD) during the COVID-19 pandemic had to adjust to more challenging treatment conditions. Aim: To explore people’s experiences of adjustment to ICHD during the pandemic. Methods: Thematic analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 14 adult UK ICHD patients. Findings: Four themes w...

Ian Danton's narrated poster presentation (3 minutes) at the UK Kidney Week 2022 conference, Birmingham, UK, 7th to 9th June 2022.

The experiences of people with chronic kidney disease who had to continue attending clinical centres for renal haemodialysis during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Romaana Kapadi's presentation of preliminary findings from the project at the Brit Spine 2021 conference.

Background: Many people with end-stage chronic kidney disease continued attending clinical centres for dialysis despite the risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing severe disease. Aims: To assess the impact of COVID-19 on patients’ adjustment and wellbeing. Methods: Forty people (18 female, 22 male) receiving in-centre haemodialysis reported...

Helping women to stop smoking during pregnancy is a major priority for health professionals and evidence suggests that financial incentives can be effective. With the aim of maximising the benefits and minimising unintended negative consequences, this paper gives a brief review of evidence about using financial incentives for smoking cessation duri...

Purpose The prevalence and multi-system nature of post-COVID-19 symptoms warrants clearer understanding of their work ability implications within the working age population. An exploratory survey was undertaken to provide empirical evidence of the work-relevant experiences of workers recovering from COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach A bespoke...

Background Theory-based intervention materials must be carefully adapted to meet the needs of users with specific physical conditions. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been adapted successfully for cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, multiple sclerosis, and a range of other conditions, but not so far for people rece...

Aim: To identify risk factors for pain medication dependence. Materials & methods: Chronic spinal pain outpatients (n = 106) completed the Leeds Dependence Questionnaire (LDQ) and measures of potential risk factors. Participants with high (n = 3) and low (n = 3) dependence were interviewed. Results: Mean LDQ score was 11.52 (standard deviation 7.35...

Initial management of the acute pain crisis (APC) of sickle cell disease (SCD) is often unsatisfactory, and might be improved by developing a standardised analgesia protocol. Here, we report the first stages in developing a standard oral protocol for adolescents and adults. Initially, we performed a dose finding study to determine the maximal toler...

Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is rooted in an evolutionary view of the human mind as formed of a multitude of contrasting, and often conflicting, motivations, emotions and competencies. A core aim of the therapy is to help clients understand the nature of their mind in a way that is de-pathologizing and de-shaming. The approach is also focused o...

Background: Theory-based intervention materials must be carefully adapted to meet the needs of users with specific physical conditions. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been adapted successfully for cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, multiple sclerosis, and a range of other conditions, but not so far for people rec...

Individuals with alexithymia struggle to make sense of their emotions. Alexithymia has been associated with a range of physical illnesses, but may influence different illnesses differently, so to understand the role of alexithymia in illness it is important to focus on specific conditions. This article reviews evidence from ten reports published be...

The aim of the study reported here was to identify mismatches in students' and tutors' understandings of the meanings of common assessment criteria used for undergraduate essays, in order to inform teaching interventions to help students improve their academic writing. Interviews with psychology tutors at a post-1992 university and focus groups wit...

Students from diverse backgrounds and with differing abilities need help in writing academic essays. This paper reports on the efficacy of a workshop programme specifically designed to help students understand what we have described as core assessment criteria. The programme, which is part of a HEFCE funded FDTL4 psychology project (www.assessmentp...

This chapter considers the implications of treating common assessment criteria for students' written work as describing the outcomes of skills, a deep approach to learning, or complex learning. The issues arise from the increasing use of assessment criteria in teaching situations to support student learning, so that the type of learning represented...

Methadone is a synthetic opiate that is used to treat dependence on heroin and related drugs. Its effects are similar to those of heroin in that it will alleviate heroin withdrawal symptoms, but it causes less euphoria, lasts for longer, and can be prescribed as a linctus or syrup that cannot be injected, as well as in tablets or injectable ampoule...

Background: Previous findings suggested that associations between childhood hyperactivity and later criminality were mediated mainly by conduct disorders. Method: Information recorded in case notes was used to predict officially recorded criminal convictions later in life among 148 individuals who were seen as child psychiatric patients between 19...

Healthcare providers’ own death anxiety can influence end-of-life communication. We interviewed nine palliative care health providers about their experiences of providing end-of-life care. Participants also completed the Revised Death Anxiety Scale. A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts identified one theme labeled “avoidant coping” and...

Background: Previous findings suggested that associations between childhood hyper‐activity and later criminality were mediated mainly by conduct disorders. Method: Information recorded in case notes was used to predict officially recorded criminal convictions in later life among 148 individuals who were seen as child psychiatric patients between 19...

Chairwork is a psychotherapeutic method that frequently focuses on self-multiplicity and internal relationships. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) uses chairwork to generate and apply compassion towards threat-based aspects of the self. This study explores self-multiplicity in a CFT chairwork intervention for self-criticism. Twelve participants with...

Regular attendance for screening can prevent most cervical cancers, but women with learning disabilities are potentially at greater risk of developing and dying from cervical cancer because current screening processes and practices create inequitable barriers, restricting their access to screening. In response, an objective of Public Health England...

Problematic use of prescribed and over-the-counter analgesics is widespread and increasing among people with chronic pain, but the availability of preventative and treatment services is limited. We evaluated a 21-day online intervention based on compassionate mind training in a prospective, randomized-controlled trial. The participants were 73 adul...

Objectives: Primary dysmenorrhea causes menstrual pain that affects women's quality of life (QoL) and analgesics are only moderately effective. Pain coping and pain acceptance influence QoL among people affected by other chronic pain conditions, so we examined pain coping, pain acceptance and analgesic use as predictors of QoL among women with pri...

Chair‐work is an experiential method used within compassion‐focused therapy (CFT) to apply compassion to various aspects of the self. This is the first study of CFT chair‐work and is focused on clients' lived experiences of a chair‐work intervention for self‐criticism. Twelve participants with depression were interviewed following the chair‐work in...

A brief measure of patient satisfaction with treatment for pain is needed to help improve the treatment of painful episodes caused by sickle cell disease (SCD), especially during and after the transition from paediatric to adult care. Focus groups of 28 adolescent and adult patients were consulted about the content, clarity and relevance of 30 pote...

The SCAPE study was designed to develop a non-injected opioid protocol for management of acute sickle pain episodes in adolescents and young adults. A sub-study aimed to develop a questionnaire which could be used to evaluate patient experience with the SCAPE treatment protocol. A brief measure of patient satisfaction with treatment for pain is als...

Background: Overuse of and dependence on analgesics (including opioids and other pain medications) are major international public health problems. Objective: To identify influences on analgesic dependence among analgesic users in the general populations of different countries. Methods: Online surveys of 1,283 people with pain in the UK, USA, A...

Attachment and affiliative relationships act both physiologically and psychologically as emotional regulators to attenuate feelings of threat, and increase feelings of safeness [1,2]. Forming and maintaining affiliative relationships involves making judgements about other people's feelings and intentions. Non-verbal communications, especially facia...

Introduction Haemophilia is an inherited chronic condition that causes bleeding in the joints and soft tissue. Healthy siblings growing up in the family of a person with haemophilia can be affected socially and psychologically. Aim To explore qualitatively the experiences of healthy siblings who grew up with a brother with severe haemophilia. Met...

This article provides a reflective account of our work on a project at the University of Derby and Bart’s Health NHS Trust, London, to evaluate a questionnaire measure of sickle cell disease (SCD) patients’ satisfaction with hospital care. Romaana Kapadi’s involvement was supported by a university internship and scholarship, and this article covers...

Renal dialysis is a life-saving treatment for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) but is burdensome, invasive and expensive. Patients’ experiences of dialysis and the outcomes of their treatment could potentially be improved by focusing on ‘acceptance’. However, the concept of acceptance has been used in different ways. This article examines ways that a...

Assessment anxiety is associated with excessive worry and cognitive disruption which can contribute to academic failure. Compassion-focused interventions have previously been effective in reducing anxiety, stress and depression among the general population. Aims: This study extended this approach to students whose academic achievement is potentiall...

A Chinese translation of the CriTT scale

Objective. The experience of long-term membership of a successful Chronic Pain Support Group (CPSG) was explored to identify; i) factors associated with social support, and; ii) ways that health-care professionals (HCPs) could help CPSGs become more effective and supportive. Design. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis enabled exploration of p...

Abstract: This paper describes a model of behaviour change support for a referral physical activity cancer service for young people. The service is underpinned by the self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 2008) principles of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. A range of tailored physical activity programmes are provided in community, in-patient and...

This presentation describes two studies that addressed this question from the point of view of Authorial Identity, which is how writers see themselves as authors, and how they approach their writing. Having a strong authorial identity should protect students from accidental plagiarism. One study used data from 745 UK university students to produce...

Background: Motivational and behavioural models of adjustment to chronic pain make different predictions about change processes, which can be tested in longitudinal analyses. Methods: We examined changes in motivation, coping and acceptance among 78 men with chronic haemophilia-related joint pain. Using cross-lagged regression analyses of change...

One approach to plagiarism prevention focuses on improving students' authorial identity, but work in this area depends on robust measures. This paper presents the development of a psychometrically robust measure of authorial identity – the Student Attitudes and Beliefs about Authorship Scale. In the item generation phase, a pool of items was develo...

Research on authorial identity has focused almost exclusively on the attitudes and beliefs of students. This paper explores how academics understand authorial identity in higher education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional academics and analysed using thematic analysis, identifying themes at two levels. At the semantic lev...

Attitudes to pain medication are important aspects of adjustment to chronic pain. They are measured by the 47-item Pain Medication Attitudes Questionnaire (PMAQ). To measure those attitudes more quickly and easily, we developed and evaluated a 14-item PMAQ using data from three separate surveys of people with pain in the general population. In surv...

Critical thinking is an important focus in higher education and is essential for good academic achievement. We report the development of a tool to measure critical thinking for three purposes: (i) to evaluate student perceptions and attitudes about critical thinking, (ii) to identify students in need of support to develop their critical thinking, a...

Objectives: Transitioning from clinical care to community-based self-management represents a significant challenge, throughout which social support can facilitate health adjustment and quality of life. However, community-centred, peer-led support structures are often underused. This study aimed to investigate the decision-making processes involved...

Combining written and video material could increase the impact of health education for people with less education, but more evidence is needed about the impact of combined materials in different formats, especially in the context of chronic pain self-management. This study tested the impact of combining written information about self-managing chron...

Objectives: To describe the coping strategies that men and women adopted during the early stages of in vitro fertilisation treatment, and explore why and how they selected those strategies. Background: Previous research has identified coping strategies used during fertility treatment and the impact of those strategies on adjustment, but not how and...

Joint pain related to haemophilia affects large numbers of people and has a significant impact on their quality of life. This article reviews evidence about behavioural and psychological aspects of joint pain in haemophilia, and considers that evidence in the context of research on other chronic pain conditions. The aim is to inform initiatives to...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of blood disorders caused by genetically determined amino acid substitutions in the beta polypeptide chains of the haemoglobin molecule. The abnormality causes haemoglobin to polymerize, or gel, when oxygen tension is lowered, making the red cells stiffen and elongate into a characteristic sickle or crescent sha...

This qualitative study of understandings of critical thinking in higher education aimed to identify themes that could help to demystify critical thinking and inform its more explicit incorporation in the psychology curriculum. Data collected from focus groups with 26 undergraduate psychology students and individual semi-structured interviews with f...

Self-medication with painkillers is widespread and increasing, and evidence about influences on painkiller dependence is needed to inform efforts to prevent and treat problem painkiller use. Online questionnaire survey. People in the general population who had pain and used painkillers in the last month (N = 112). Pain frequency and intensity, use...

Background: Interventions based on coping and acceptance can be adapted for people with different painful conditions. Evidence about baseline characteristics that predict improved outcomes is informative for matching people to interventions, whereas evidence about changes that predict improved outcomes is informative about the processes that inter...

This study investigated how men and women made sense of multiple goals during fertility treatment. Both members of three heterosexual couples participated in two or three semi-structured interviews over 6 months, producing 14 accounts, which were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The goal of biological parenthood dominates as...

Dyslexia may lead to difficulties with academic writing as well as reading. The authorial identity approach aims to help students improve their academic writing and avoid unintentional plagiarism, and could help to understand dyslexic students' approaches to writing. (1) To compare dyslexic and non-dyslexic students' authorial identity and approach...

A DVD (digital video disk) intervention to increase readiness to self-manage joint pain secondary to hemophilia was informed by a 2-phase, motivational-volitional model of readiness to self-manage pain, and featured the personal experiences of individuals with hemophilia. The DVD was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial in which 108 men with...

Qualitative interview studies suggest that adult patients' experiences of hospital treatment for sickle cell disease (SCD) pain reflect an absence of respect by providers for patients, and an absence or breakdown of trust. Systematic comparisons between treatment settings could help identify contextual influences on respect and trust. Quantitative...

The current research examined understandings and perceptions of critical thinking and aimed to develop a tool to measure critical thinking and supplement the development of critical thinking skills. Two studies were conducted. The first entailed six focus groups with (26) students and four interviews with staff to explore conceptualisations of crit...

This study was carried out with new lecturers on a two year Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education programme in a UK university. The aim was to establish their beliefs about how studying on the programme aligned with their teaching and learning philosophy and what, if anything, had changed or constrained those belief...

Students with poorly developed authorial identity may be at risk of unintentional plagiarism. An instructional intervention designed specifically to improve authorial identity was delivered to 364 psychology students at three post‐1992 universities in London, UK, and evaluated with before‐and‐after measures of beliefs and attitudes about academic a...

This paper reports three studies about preparing Further Education (FE) students for the transition to Higher Education (HE) by improving their understanding of HE assessment criteria. In study 1, students and tutors in both FE and HE were interviewed for a qualitative analysis of their understandings and expectations about assessment criteria. In...

Many people with hemophilia are affected by chronic arthritic joint pain as well as acute bleeding pain. In this cross-sectional study, 209 men with hemophilia A or B completed the Hemophilia Pain Coping Questionnaire (HPCQ), the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire (CPAQ), and the RAND 36-item Health Survey (SF-36), a measure of health-related qu...

Authorial identity is the sense a writer has of themselves as an author and the textual identity they construct in their writing. This article describes two studies exploring psychology students' authorial identity in academic writing. A qualitative focus group study with 19 students showed that authorial identity was largely unfamiliar to students...

Three years of action research into a study skills and transition programme for psychology undergraduates are reported. The programme began as a ‘bolt-on’ response to perceptions of student deficit and developed to focus on transition to university. Data from three cohorts and over 600 students show attendance to be associated with higher academic...

Pain coping strategies are important influences on outcomes among people with painful chronic conditions. The pain coping strategies questionnaire (CSQ) was previously adapted for sickle cell disease and haemophilia, but those versions have 80 items, and a briefer version with similar psychometric properties would facilitate research on pain coping...

All UK postgraduate qualifications in applied areas of psychology will soon be competence-based. This will improve the professional recognition and esteem of applied psychology, and make it easier to transfer qualifications between psychology and other disciplines and between psychology sub-disciplines. However, the changes pose considerable challe...

The Rutter scales are a pair of short questionnaires for collecting information from parents and teachers about the behaviour of children aged about nine to thirteen years. They focus on emotional and conduct disorders and were designed as screening instruments for epidemiological research. Over the last 25 years they have been used in over 80 stud...

Information is needed about how the effects of socio-economic deprivation on teenage pregnancy are mediated by proximal risk factors, in order to target area-wide and family interventions more effectively. Using a 2x2 factorial design, we tested the separate and interacting effects of area deprivation and family deprivation on six specific proximal...

Judgments about people with pain are influenced by contextual factors that can lead to stigmatization of patients who present in certain ways. Misplaced staff perceptions of addiction may contribute to this, because certain pain behaviors superficially resemble symptoms of analgesic addiction. We used a vignette study to examine hospital staff judg...

Assessment criteria are increasingly incorporated into teaching, making it important to clarify the pedagogic status of the qualities to which they refer. We reviewed theory and evidence about the extent to which four core criteria for student writing—critical thinking, use of language, structuring, and argument—refer to the outcomes of three types...

Research is needed to enable more effective assessment and treatment of analgesic addiction among patients with painful chronic illnesses and to improve our understanding of the staff-patient interactions that give rise to pseudoaddiction. This study tested predictions that certain drug-use behaviors and pain-coping strategies were associated with...

In this chapter we discuss the implementation and evaluation of a programme of writing workshops designed around the concept of 'core' assessment criteria. The workshops had two aims: helping undergraduates improve their essay writing and promoting deep approaches to learning. Essay assignments continue to be valuable as a way of both assessing (Pr...

Quality of life impairments are greater in chronic daily headache (CDH) than in episodic headache conditions like migraine. This qualitative interview study aimed to identify psychological processes associated with quality of life impairments among individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for CDH. Grounded theory analysis showed that perceived loss...