Siobhan O'Higgins

University of Galway | NUI Galway · Centre for Pain Research (CPR), School of PSychology

This study explores how identifying with multiple minority groups relates to sexual harassment victimization (SHV) among students in higher education institutions in Ireland ( n = 6,002). Results show that gender nonconforming and female students were more likely than males to experience SHV. Bisexual or queer and gay or lesbian students were more...

Our research explores how secondary school students draw on commonly recognised sexual scripts to account for the consent practices of young people. We constructed three vignette variations which described a real-life ‘hook-up’ scenario using ‘status-quo’ scripts related to gender roles, gendered power dynamics, and alcohol consumption. Young peopl...

Introduction Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) negatively affects adolescents’ everyday activities. To address the need for innovative, effective, convenient, low-cost psychosocial self-management programmes, we developed an Irish version of Canadian Teens Taking Charge (TTC) and integrated it with Skype-based peer support iPeer2Peer (iP2P). Obj...

Introduction Multimorbidity refers to the presence of two or more chronic health conditions within one person, where no one condition is primary. Research suggests that multimorbidity is highly correlated with chronic pain, which is pain lasting longer than 3 months. Psychotherapeutic interventions for people living with chronic illness have result...

Background Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) affects over 1000 children and adolescents in Ireland, potentially impacting health-related quality-of-life. Accessible self-management strategies, including Internet-based interventions, can support adolescents in Ireland where specialist rheumatology care is geographically-centralised within the capi...

Involving children in participatory health research (PHR) provides exciting opportunities to gain insights into their perspectives and capacities and encourages them to make a meaningful contribution to issues affecting their lives. It is underpinned by a rights-based approach, where children’s evolving expertise is valued. In PHR, children are not...

Systems‐based approaches to societal problem‐solving entail a capacity to synthesise our knowledge and skills such that we can resolve shared problems. However, the increasing range of knowledge specialisms, scientific and engineering methods, and skill profiles at the population‐level challenges solidarity. It is also difficult to identify unifyin...

BACKGROUND Electronic health (eHealth) is the use of information and communication technology in the context of health care and health research. Recently, there has been a rise in the number of eHealth modalities and the frequency with which they are used to deliver technology-assisted self-management interventions for people living with chronic pa...

Background: Electronic health (eHealth) is the use of information and communication technology in the context of health care and health research. Recently, there has been a rise in the number of eHealth modalities and the frequency with which they are used to deliver technology-assisted self-management interventions for people living with chronic...

Background: As eHealth interventions prove both efficacious and practical, and as they arguably overcome certain barriers encountered by traditional face-to-face treatment for chronic pain, their number has increased dramatically in recent times. However, there is a dearth of research that focuses on evaluating and comparing the different types of...

Introduction Multimorbidity (MM) refers to the coexistence of two or more chronic conditions within one person, where no one condition is considered primary. As populations age and healthcare provision improves, MM is becoming increasingly common and poses a challenge to the single morbidity approach to illness management, usually adopted by health...

Background: Barriers to uptake of psychological treatment for chronic pain management include access and resource issues. Technology-based interventions for pain management are a more accessible treatment approach. The internet can be an effective mode of delivery of psychological treatment for chronic conditions. Research in this area has largely...

Multimorbidity is defined as the coexistence of two or more conditions within one person, where no one condition is primary. Chronic Pain (CP) is found to be one of the most frequent conditions represented amongst multimorbidities. CP and in particular MM, can have significant debilitating effects on a persons’ Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL...

Chronic pain is acknowledged as a significant health problem for children; however there is limited data on the prevalence of chronic pain in children. PRIME-C is a three-year longitudinal study that explored this issue among 5–12-year-olds living in Ireland. PRIME-C aimed to determine the prevalence, impact and cost of child chronic pain in an Iri...

Chronic pain is acknowledged as a serious health concern among children. Both recurrent and persistent chronic pain can have a significant detrimental impact on child development. The aim of this investigation was to examine the characteristics of children who reported chronic pain at at least two time points in the PRIME-C survey, and parent chara...

Research suggests that parents may underestimate and under-report the extent and impact of chronic pain for their children. The PRIME-C study investigated the prevalence, impact and cost of chronic pain among children aged 5–12 in Ireland, using child self-report and parental report. A convergent mixed-methods survey was used to assess location, qu...

Previous research has indicated that pain influences children's daily lives, resulting in absence from school, sleep problems, poor school performance and problems with social activities. Our study aims to characterise the nature, extent, impact and cost of chronic pain among Irish children. Using cluster-systematic random sampling, primary schools...

Background: Menstrual pain which is severe enough to impact on daily activities is very common amongst menstruating females. Research suggests that menstrual pain which impacts on daily functioning may be even more prevalent amongst those with intellectual disabilities. Despite this, little research attention has focused on pain management program...

Introduction Internet-delivered psychological interventions among people with chronic pain have the potential to overcome environmental and economic barriers to the provision of evidence-based psychological treatment in the Irish health service context. While the use of internet-delivered cognitive–behavioural therapy programmes has been consistent...

Purpose – Child participation is increasingly a global phenomenon as stated by Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on Children's Rights. This supports the first principle, Democracy, of the Health Promoting School movement. The purpose of this paper is to facilitate a three-phase participatory research process (PRP) to document the views of...

Pre-pregnancy care programmes can help to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with pregnancy in women with diabetes. However, uptake of a free pre-pregnancy care programme along the Irish Atlantic seaboard was only 30%. This study sought to better understand why women with diabetes mellitus (Type 1 and Type 2) choose to attend pre-pregnancy c...

Background / Purpose: The aim of the study was to explore the young people’s perspectives on the factors affecting condom use.Two data sets were generated; one from younger participants, modal age 16 years, (ranging from 15-18 years), and older students modal age 19 years. The issues identified by both groups of participants included the followin...

This research set out to explore how young people could contribute to sexual health curriculum development, in order to increase the relevance of such curricula to school children. The aim was to facilitate young Irish people, through a participatory research methodology, to generate, collate and present their views on effective sex education. Deve...

Purpose Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) is mandated in all Irish schools. This study aims to illuminate the perceived value and quality of SPHE and to document facilitators of successful implementation. Design/methodology/approach A case study approach was taken, where 713 pupils, 968 parents and 49 teachers and other staff across a s...

Purpose – The shared language of youth includes understandings of concepts that can be different from those of adults. Researchers, in their efforts to explore and illuminate the health behaviours and decision‐making processes of young people, use generic terms in their data collecting protocols. This study aims to explore what adolescents understa...

The needs of all service users include those related to physical, emotional, sexual and mental health. This article documents where child health needs are recognised and being met within family support services in the west of Ireland, investigates whether there is variation across different types of family support services and presents the views of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline a three-stage process for engaging with students to develop school level indicators of health; in sequential class groups students first generated, then categorised indicators and finally developed schematic representations of their analyses. There is a political and practical need to develop approp...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline a three‐stage process for engaging with students to develop school level indicators of health; in sequential class groups students first generated, then categorised indicators and finally developed schematic representations of their analyses. There is a political and practical need to develop approp...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an exploration of parents', teachers' and childrens' perspectives on children's understanding of wellbeing with the aim of illuminating and comparing the conceptualisation of wellbeing from these three perspectives. Design/methodology/approach The participatory method developed to undertake the study...

INTRODUCTION In April 2000 the Department of Education and Science approved the Junior Cycle Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) syllabus (Department of Education and Science CircularM22/00). SPHE was designed to match with and facilitate the educational principles that underpin the Junior Cycle (JC) curriculum and all post-primary schools...