Re: Research Methods in the Health Sciences

[Guest guest]

Hello Tim You've not said what sort of scale you are talking about, so I'm not sure where to start. Some research questions require massive resources to answer, whilst some could be addressed by a more modest study. Is this like a PhD / Master's study? Or a formal study where you and your research unit are bidding for funding? I guess the key thing is to identify issues that are not already researched, or are at least under-researched (in addition to what you are interested in). I'm not sure the forum will necessarily be able to help without knowing the evidence base particularly well, and maybe the ACT for professionals site might also have

ideas? I wonder if or his colleagues have done a "what we don't know, but need to find out" piece in any of their prolific writings? I've tapped out a couple of ideas below, purely out of self-indulgence and being interested in research. I'm not sure they fit your interests, or your scope, so I've 'appended' them to the post. Best wishes, I don't know if these studies exist, but I would be interested in: 1. Designing an ACT-based intervention in the workplace, as an occupational health strategy for reducing work-related stress. I think ACT might not only reduce the incidence of

stress, but actually improve the productivity and effectiveness of workers through better health and better decision-making. So you could include measures of productivity and output alongside traditional measures of wellbeing and stress. Potentially, this would not just be done with those "off sick" (since "presenteeism" is as costly as "absenteeism" to firms), but potentially you could screen for participants who are exhibiting symptoms of stress and burnout. I would see this as a preventive service, if you like. This could be done on a fairly small scale, as a pilot, and your research could evaluate its effectiveness (vs a control sample in the same workplace). A small randomised group could work. If you work at a university, and have practitioners available to implement this, you could even use your own university as

the place the trial operates in. I see this sort of study having a lot of buy-in from employers and trade unions, as well as traditional funders of academic research? I'd love to do this study - do it in my country, please!!! 2. I feel that ACT makes a significant advance to traditional CBT, by explicitly acknowledging that emotions sit alongside cognition and behaviour. I am entirely ignorant about how working with emotion fits into CBT, and maybe I am doing it a disservice, and Beck would want to put me firmly in my place. But from where I sit, I feel that troublesome emotions were never successfully addressed by the CBT I did. I wanted "CBET", if you like. I felt ACT did that, through acceptance and expansion (though

it never quite worked for me). I don't know if that has ever been studied. If I am not 100 million miles away from reality, maybe a study could look at whether ACT patients feel that their emotions trouble them less as compared to other therapies / no therapy. In brief, (2) is about noting that ACT is said to be "at least as effective as CBT". Well, in a way, that makes it entirely irrelevant: why not stick to what we have? It's because ACT could help people that CBT doesn't help, because it works in different ways. Acceptance of feeling and emotion might be one part of that. To: ACT_for_the_Public Sent: Friday, 20 July 2012, 5:01 Subject: Research Methods in the Health Sciences

Hi Everyone,

This post will be slightly different from the norm!

I am enrolled in a research paper at uni and aim to complete a research proposal based on ACT Therapy. I have chosen ACT Therapy as I am very interested in it and have found it to be so so valuable in my own life.

What I am asking is...

Does anyone have any ideas for potential research questions/objectives based around ACT Therapy. I thought that a general brainstorm may be really useful. I am particularly interested in defusion, in observing thought, the observing self and values. The research proposal doesn't need to be 'technical', the questions/objectives can be quite general.

I thought that you ACT experts may have some really good ideas :-)

Thanks alot for any input

Tim

[Guest guest]

Tim,Something I'm interested in is ACT for general public.  I mean for people who don't necessarily fall under any kind of diagnosis such as depression or anxiety or borderline personalty disorder or whatever other " disorder " people can make up.  Instead just regular folk who are looking for ways to be more productive or stop procrastination or have better relationships with co-workers, bosses, subordinates, friends, lovers, dancer partners, etc.  Or people looking at living a values life or move from getting by to flourishing.  That kind of thing.

Perhaps study using ACT in a workplace or corporation or other organization.  In schools.  But more for everyone, not just crazy people or depressive, etc.

 

Hi Everyone,

This post will be slightly different from the norm!

I am enrolled in a research paper at uni and aim to complete a research proposal based on ACT Therapy. I have chosen ACT Therapy as I am very interested in it and have found it to be so so valuable in my own life.

What I am asking is...

Does anyone have any ideas for potential research questions/objectives based around ACT Therapy. I thought that a general brainstorm may be really useful. I am particularly interested in defusion, in observing thought, the observing self and values. The research proposal doesn't need to be 'technical', the questions/objectives can be quite general.

I thought that you ACT experts may have some really good ideas :-)

Thanks alot for any input

Tim