Dr Blánaid Gavin and Prof Fiona McNicholas of the UCD Academic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (ACAP) Group has been awarded “the Aoife Galvin /AIB Newman Fellowship in Frontline Adolescent Mental Health” through a generous donation by the Donal Galvin / AIB Together Fund.
Newman Fellowships are UCD’s premier post-doctoral awards, providing scholars with outstanding mentoring and research experience.
Since 1989, leading Irish and multinational corporations, semi-state bodies, voluntary organisations and individuals have supported high-calibre, post-doctoral research across the humanities and sciences through the UCD Newman Fellowship Programme. Each Fellowship offers financial support for a period of two years, allowing the Fellow the freedom to pursue their particular area of research. Working alongside their academic mentors, the Fellows contribute greatly to the academic research agenda of their particular discipline and to university life in general.
The Newman Fellowship Programme’s success depends on the recruitment of highly talented, energetic Fellows and on the continued generous financial support from the corporate and philanthropic sectors.
The Newman Fellow, Dr Shane O’Donnell, received a PhD in Sociology from University College Dublin in 2014 and has over ten years of experience exploring the psychosocial wellbeing of vulnerable populations, including people living with diabetes, cystic fibrosis and obesity, through qualitative and ethnographic research methods.
Description of research:
Outside acute hospitals, COVID-19 has placed extraordinary demand on health systems (Emanuel et al.,2020) At speed, HCWs have assumed new professional responsibilities, adapted care models and expanded aspects of clinical care provision. Workplace changes are occurring at a seismic pace, alongside societal anxiety and distress. In ‘normal’ times, work related stress disproportionally affects healthcare workers (Russell et al. ,2018) and is linked to excessive workloads, working in emotionally charged environments where demand exceeds capacity, working within the context of the pandemic crisis, HCWs may be exposed to a level of psychological stress generally limited to contexts such as military healthcare, different to anything previously encountered by Irish HCWs. Concepts such as ‘moral trauma’ after workers are forced to make ethical decisions which violate their personal ethical code may ensue (Greenberg et al.,2020).
Given this unique cocktail of psychological stressors for HCWs, it is essential to understand the psychological sequelae of healthcare provision during a pandemic to inform the development of tools to enhance resilience and adaptive coping mechanisms. Post-pandemic there will inevitably be further depleted healthcare resources including manpower. The risk of enduring mental distress in healthcare workers must be alleviated both to prevent the huge personal toll to the individual and to prevent ‘a second hit’ to manpower levels if psychological trauma results in absenteeism and reduced work productivity as has occurred in other countries post SARS pandemic(Maunder et al.,2008).
In order to address this issue, the Fellowship will utilise a suite of participatory, co-creation methods to develop an intervention to support HCWs in Ireland in dealing with the psychological consequences of COVID-19 and potential future pandemics.
The project builds upon ACAPs sustained engagement in researching the psychosocial aspects of COVID-19, both at a national and international level, as well as track record in developing tools to aid understanding of psychological distress.
The project features an interdisciplinary research group, including:
If you would like to sponsor a Newman Fellowship or would like more information on the Research Project, please contact Dr Blánaid Gavin.