Research Involvement Opportunities

Designing a Simulator for a New Concept in Shoulder Joint Arthroplasty

Do you have osteoarthritis of the shoulder? Are you aged 18 plus? If so, researchers at the University of Southampton would love to hear from you.

A key limitation of many biomedical engineering projects is failure to involve the patient, often meaning their needs remain misunderstood or unmet. As a team of fourth year mechanical engineers, we acknowledge that we are missing a vital set of expertise for our project that can only be provided by people with lived experience of osteoarthritis, preferably of the shoulder. If you fit the criteria, we would like to conduct 15 to 30-minute, friendly, unscripted conversations with participants to learn how OA impacts daily living activities, joint mobility, and overall quality of life. This will help us understand how shoulder replacements could be improved to better meet patient needs.

If you are interested and would like to find out more (including full Participant Information) please complete the registration of interest survey.

If you have any questions about this research project, please contact Hannelore Williams-Reid at hwr1u18@soton.ac.uk  or Thea O’Brien at tero1g17@soton.ac.uk.

This research opportunity is NOT organised by Arthritis Action and we cannot take responsibility for your involvement.

Do you have experience of living with persistent pain or caring for someone with persistent pain?

Researchers at CRIISP are looking for people aged 18 years or over, who are either living with persistent pain (pain lasting more than 3 months) or caring for someone with persistent pain. This needs to be a recent experience, so in the last four years. We are working to find out more about how thoughts, feelings, relationships with others, the way we live, and how the world around us can affect the ways we experience pain. More information about this project can be found at: https://criisp.uk/.

We are holding online information sessions so you can find out more about becoming involved. If you decide to work with us after attending this session, we will reimburse you for the time you spend working with us in the future. We need your help to ensure the voices of people living with persistent pain, or caring for someone with persistent pain, are heard at every stage of the project and we welcome participation from all backgrounds.

If you want to sign up for a session to find out more, please email Ellen Readman, Patient and Public Involvement Research Administrator, at criisp.ppi@uwe.ac.uk.

This research opportunity is NOT organised by Arthritis Action and we cannot take responsibility for your involvement.  

Free 4-week Online Self-Compassion Course

Do you have a long-term health condition (e.g. chronic pain, back pain, arthritis, IBS, cancer, diabetes, HIV, physical injury) and want to improve self-compassion and acceptance? Would you like to find better ways to manage the relationship you have with the condition?

If so, you can take part in a research project in collaboration with Royal Holloway University and access a free online course on self-compassion. This contains videos, exercises and work sheets to practise on a daily or weekly basis.

If you are interested in taking part please click here for further details and to start now. Please also share with anyone you may know who could benefit.

For any questions, you can contact Dr Selina Wolke at compassionstudy2021@gmail.com.

This research opportunity is NOT organised by Arthritis Action and we cannot take responsibility for your involvement.

Research study on young people and arthritis

PhD researchers at the University of York are inviting young people, aged between 14 and 30 years old and diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), to participate in interviews via Zoom to explore their lived experiences. By listening to stories from young people the study aims to understand what impact JIA may have on their lives in the transition to adulthood. At present there is limited understanding of young people’s illness experience, especially of JIA. This research aims to fill this knowledge gap to inform and aid further research on young people’s experiences of living with JIA to improve educational, vocational and personal outcomes.

The interviews are expected to take no longer than 1 hour. If you fit the criteria and are interested in taking part (or know someone who might be) please email researcher Charlotte Dimond at charlotte.dimond@york.ac.uk.

You can view Charlotte’s profile here.

This research opportunity is NOT organised by Arthritis Action and we cannot take responsibility for your involvement.

Seeking participants for a research study into knee osteoarthritis

Are you aged 45 to 65 and have you been diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis? Do you live in or would you be able to travel to Bath? If so, researchers from University of Bath would like to hear from you.

We are looking for people who fit the above criteria to take part in a face-to-face study at the Applied Biomechanics Suite (ABS) at the University of Bath. This will be the first study to evaluate the effect of different foot orientations across a range of daily activities (walking, stair climbing and sit-to-stand). An advance camera-based motion capture system and force plates will be used to collect and measure your movement data. A professional gait analysis report will be provided after the study. This could be of great benefit in your daily life in the long run, as the way in which we move influences the load placed on our joints and the risk of progressing joint degeneration in later life.

Taking part in the study will involve only one visit to the lab that should take around two hours. We will provide participants with a parking permit, but cannot reimburse travelling expenses. We are looking to recruit about 30 participants.

If you are interested in taking part in this study or would like to find out more about it, please email researcher Yi Wan at yw2984@bath.ac.uk.

This research opportunity is NOT organised by Arthritis Action and we cannot take responsibility for your involvement.

Researchers at the University of Warwick WITHIN Project are looking for participants (aged 18+ and English speaking) with a diagnosed chronic pain condition to take part in a lab-based study, funded by the Medical Research Council, investigating how mental defeat impacts distress and disability in chronic pain patients. Participants must be willing to travel to the University of Warwick based in Coventry.

If you agree to take part in the study, you will be invited to attend a test session with one of the researchers at the University of Warwick Sleep and Pain Laboratory located at the main Central Campus in Coventry.  The test session typically takes no longer than 2.5 hours. As a thank you for your time, at the end of the lab-based study you will receive a £20 Amazon voucher as a reimbursement of your time and travel expenses.

More details can be found in the  Participant Information Leaflet and you can also find out more about the study on the WITHIN Project website.

If you would like to take part, please first complete this short screening questionnaire.

For further information or if you have any questions, please contact withinstudy@warwick.ac.uk.

This research opportunity is NOT organised by Arthritis Action and we cannot take responsibility for your involvement.