Foregrounding pain in self-managed early medication abortion: a qualitative study.

Objective: To explore experiences of pain in the context of early medical abortion (EMA) in the UK and to guide best practice around anticipatory guidance on pain.

Methods: From late 2020 to early 2021, we recruited individuals from across the UK who had undergone abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic to participate in in-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews. A storytelling approach was used and data were analysed thematically using NVivo 12 software.

Seeking support for abortion online: a qualitative study of women's experiences.

Introduction: Social support can mitigate the impact of stress and stigma before or after an abortion. However, stigma anticipation can limit access to in-person support. Informal online spaces can offer opportunities to address unmet support needs including supplementing in-person support lacking within stigmatised contexts.

Social connectedness and supported self-management of early medication abortion in the UK: experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic and learning for the future.

Medication abortion has been established globally as safe and effective. This modality has increased accessibility and the opportunity to centre individual autonomy at the heart of abortion care, by facilitating self-managed abortion. Previous research has shown how self-managed abortion is beneficial in myriad settings ranging from problematic to (relatively) unproblematic contexts of access.

A peer-led, school-based social network intervention for young people in the UK, promoting sexual health via social media and conversations with friends: intervention development and optimisation of STASH.

Background: The quality of school-based sex and relationships education (SRE) is variable in the UK. Digitally-based interventions can usefully supplement teacher-delivered lessons and positively impact sexual health knowledge. Designed to address gaps in core SRE knowledge, STASH (Sexually Transmitted infections And Sexual Health) is a peer-led social network intervention adapted from the successful ASSIST (A Stop Smoking in Schools Trial) model, and based on Diffusion of Innovation theory.

Home-based cardiac rehabilitation for people with heart failure and their caregivers: a mixed-methods analysis of the roll out an evidence-based programme in Scotland (SCOT:REACH-HF study).

Aims: Alternative models of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are required to improve CR access and uptake. Rehabilitation EnAblement in CHronic Heart Failure (REACH-HF) is a comprehensive home-based rehabilitation and self-management programme, facilitated by trained health professionals, for people with heart failure (HF) and their caregivers. REACH-HF was shown to be clinically effective and cost-effective in a multi-centre randomized trial.

Feasibility study of peer-led and school-based social network Intervention (STASH) to promote adolescent sexual health.

Background: Effective sex education is the key to good sexual health. Peer-led approaches can augment teacher-delivered sex education, but many fail to capitalise on mechanisms of social influence. We assessed the feasibility of a novel intervention (STASH) in which students (aged 14-16) nominated as influential by their peers were recruited and trained as Peer Supporters (PS).

Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Social Media Messages on Sexual Health in a School-Based Intervention: Opportunities and Challenges Identified in the STASH Feasibility Trial.

Background: There is a strong interest in the use of social media to spread positive sexual health messages through social networks of young people. However, research suggests that this potential may be limited by a reluctance to be visibly associated with sexual health content on the web or social media and by the lack of trust in the veracity of peer sources.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate opportunities and challenges of using social media to facilitate peer-to-peer sharing of sexual health messages within the context of STASH (Sexually Transmitted Infections and Sexual Health), a secondary school-based and peer-led sexual health intervention.

Effectiveness of social network interventions to support cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention in the management of people with heart disease.

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the effectiveness of social network and social support interventions to support cardiac rehabilitation and secondary prevention in the management of people with heart disease. As a secondary output of this review, and to assist in conceptualising future research focused on social network and social support interventions, we aim to develop a logic model theorising the relationship between social networks or social support and heart disease outcomes.

Protocol for an implementation study of an evidence-based home cardiac rehabilitation programme for people with heart failure and their caregivers in Scotland (SCOT:REACH-HF).

Introduction: Despite evidence that cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an essential component of care for people with heart failure, uptake is low. A centre-based format is a known barrier, suggesting that home-based programmes might improve accessibility. The aim of SCOT: Rehabilitation EnAblement in CHronic Heart Failure (REACH-HF) is to assess the implementation of the REACH-HF home-based CR intervention in the context of the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland.

Normalising abortion: what role can health professionals play?

Background: Despite being a common gynaecological procedure, abortion continues to be widely stigmatised. The research and medical communities are increasingly considering ways of reducing stigma, and health professionals have a role to play in normalising abortion as part of routine sexual and reproductive healthcare (SRH). We sought to investigate how health professionals may normalise abortion and challenge prevailing negative sociocultural narratives.

Conducting sexualities research: an outline of emergent issues and case studies from ten Wellcome-funded projects.

This letter seeks to synthesise methodological challenges encountered in a cohort of Wellcome Trust-funded research projects focusing on sexualities and health. The ten Wellcome Trust projects span a diversity of gender and sexual orientations and identities, settings; institutional and non-institutional contexts, lifecourse stages, and explore a range of health-related interventions.  As researchers, we originate from a breadth of disciplinary traditions, use a variety of research methods and data sources.

Toward normalising abortion: findings from a qualitative secondary analysis study.

In most settings worldwide, abortion continues to be highly stigmatised. Whilst a considerable body of literature has addressed abortion stigma, what is less commonly examined are the ways in which those with experience of abortion describe it in non-negative terms which may resist or reject stigma. Drawing on qualitative secondary analysis of five UK datasets using a narrative inquiry approach, we explore: the use of non-negative language around abortion, potential components of a normalising narrative, and constraints on non-negativity.

Peer-led intervention to prevent and reduce STI transmission and improve sexual health in secondary schools (STASH): protocol for a feasibility study.

Background: Young people in the UK are at highest risk of sexually transmitted infections and report higher levels of unsafe sex than any other age group. Involving peer supporters in intervention delivery is acceptable to students and effective in reducing risk behaviours via 'diffusion of innovation', particularly where peer supporters are influential in their networks. Informal peer-led interventions offer a useful alternative to peer-led didactic teaching, which has shown limited effects.

Women's embodied experiences of second trimester medical abortion.

Abortions in general, and second trimester abortions in particular, are experiences which in many contexts have limited sociocultural visibility. Research on second trimester abortion worldwide has focused on a range of associated factors including risks and acceptability of abortion methods, and characteristics and decision-making of women seeking the procedure. Scholarship to date has not adequately addressed the embodied physicality of second trimester abortion, from the perspective of women's lived experiences, nor how these experiences might inform future framings of abortion.

The changing body work of abortion: a qualitative study of the experiences of health professionals.

'Body work' has emerged at the nexus of sociologies of work and bodies as a means of conceptualising work focusing on the bodies of others. This article utilises this analytical tool in the context of contemporary abortion work. Abortion provision in Britain has seen significant change in the last 25 years, paralleling developments in medical methods, and the option for women under nine weeks' gestation to complete the abortion at home.

Contraceptive care at the time of medical abortion: experiences of women and health professionals in a hospital or community sexual and reproductive health context.

Objective: To examine experiences of contraceptive care from the perspective of health professionals and women seeking abortion, in the contexts of hospital gynaecology departments and a specialist sexual and reproductive health centre (SRHC).

Materials And Methods: We conducted in-depth semistructured interviews with 46 women who had received contraceptive care at the time of medical abortion (gestation ≤9weeks) from one SRHC and two hospital gynaecology-department-based abortion clinics in Scotland. We also interviewed 25 health professionals (nurses and doctors) involved in abortion and contraceptive care at the same research sites.

The stigmatisation of abortion: a qualitative analysis of print media in Great Britain in 2010.

The media play a significant part in shaping public perceptions of health issues, and abortion attracts continued media interest. Detailed examination of media constructions of abortion may help to identify emerging public discourse. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine if and how the print media in contributes to the stigmatisation of abortion.

Access to and experience of later abortion: accounts from women in Scotland.

Context: Except in the presence of significant medical indications, the legal limit for abortion in Great Britain is 24 weeks' gestation. Nevertheless, abortion for nonmedical reasons is not usually provided in Scotland after 18-20 weeks, meaning women have to travel to England for the procedure.

Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 23 women presenting for "later" abortions (i.

An MRI/US/x-ray compatible breast localization marker: in vivo evaluation.

Rationale And Objectives: An in vivo evaluation of a new trimodality breast localization marker was performed with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound (US), x-ray, and histopathology. The evaluation of the marker in animal tests should help define its utility for surgical biopsy localization in humans.

Materials And Methods: Five rabbits were used and sacrificed at 2 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 7 weeks after marker implantation.

Usefulness of contrast kinetics for predicting and monitoring tissue changes in muscle following thermal therapy in long survival studies.

Purpose: To investigate Gd-DTPA kinetics as indicators of subacute and subchronic histopathological changes following focused ultrasound (FUS) thermal therapy for improved evaluation.

Materials And Methods: A total of 18 FUS lesions were created in the thigh muscle of five rabbits under magnetic resonance (MR) guidance at 1.5 Tesla.

Prediction of subtle thermal histopathological change using a novel analysis of Gd-DTPA kinetics.

Purpose: To investigate Gd-DTPA kinetics as predictors of histopathological changes following focused ultrasound (FUS) thermal ablation for improved planning and assessment.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-nine FUS lesions were created in the thigh muscle of eight rabbits under MR-guidance at 1.5 Tesla.