The lived experience of the soft heel cast.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The lived experience of the soft heel cast, management of heel pressure ulcerations in an acute setting; an interpretative phenomenological study.
IRAS ID
158709
Contact name
Chris Morriss-Roberts
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Brighton
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Within the scope of Podiatry practice, soft heel casting has been introduced to try and offload pressure when a patient has heel ulceration.
The methodological aim of this study is to recruit between six and eight participants (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009,) whom have been provided with a soft heel cast at the Royal Free Hospital as an Inpatient or as an Outpatient.
A simple internal database has been kept allowing the Podiatry Department to record all patients who have been provided with a soft heel cast since is initiation twelve months ago. A recruitment letter and information sheet for participants will be posted out by the Researcher, to all patients who appear on this database.
The inclusion criteria to include any gender, from any ethnicity, any sexuality or age group. Exclusion criteria includes any patient under the age of eighteen, or unable to consent to take part in the study.
Participants will need to give written consent to take part in the study.Participants will contact the Researcher to take part in the study via email or telephone. Recruitment will work on a first come first serve basis. The study will involve the participants attending a single one-hour semi-structured interview at the Royal Free Hospital, North London. All interviews will be digitally recorded.
The electronic recordings will be transcribed and analysed by the principle investigator utilising interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009).
All the data will be stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act (1998).
Through analysis this research will gain an insight into the lived experience of the soft heel cast.REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0040
Date of REC Opinion
13 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion