Promoting a sense of personal agency in palliative care patients (V1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Assessing and facilitating the development of personal agency in patients in palliative care.
IRAS ID
157926
Contact name
Robert Elliott
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Strathclyde
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
A sense of personal agency is the feeling people have of themselves as having the ability to initiate thoughts and actions that can help them to become motivated to enter into end-of-life discussions; assess their limitations as a result of their illness and make judgements about how they can improve the quality of their remaining life.
In a previous study, also in St. Andrew's Hospice, I found eight main categories or levels of personal agency that represented how participants saw themselves as having the ability to initiate thoughts and actions, to varying degrees, on their personal world. Also, results showed that sub-categories, that expressed subtle differences, were identified within the main categories.
However, although the ability to respond to a life concern lies within the participant, their vulnerability and uncertainty, brought about by their illness, may require them to seek help in their search for meaning. The offer of EFT-LLI, within a caring, prizing, non-judgemental relationship was found to help participants in the earlier study.
In the current study, I will, firstly, replicate with 8 patients; 4 from Day Hospice and 4 from In-ward area. Secondly, the results from the replication will be converted into observational and self-report measures and used to test reliability and validity of the levels of personal agency, with a Pilot study: sample of 10 patients from Day Hospice and Test Studies; 10 from Day Hospice and 10 from In-ward. Thirdly, a fresh sample of patients (10 from Day Hospice and 10 from In-ward) will participate in an outcome study to discover the effect of EFT-LLI intervention (pre-post intervention). The fourth closely-linked study that will measure the change process, requires no new sample of patients. That is, data from the third study will be used to uncover the EFT-LLI tasks associated with improvements in personal agency.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
15/WS/0253
Date of REC Opinion
16 Nov 2015
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion