Patients,parents and professionals opinions on childhood hypermobility
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Gaining the opinions of young people, their parents and professionals from medicine and healthcare on the impact of Benign Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, the assessment tools used for its identification and the professionals who should be involved in diagnosis and management of the condition
IRAS ID
160720
Contact name
Peter Bale
Contact email
Research summary
The research involves conducting a number of discussion groups to gain knowledge of the views of patients, parents, teachers and doctors regarding childhood hypermobility and its association with pain and difficulties.
The groups will discuss the impact of childhood hypermobility and pain on the child and the family unit, the currently available assessment tools for identification of the condition and how these could be improved, the professionals they believe should be involved in the diagnosis and management of the condition and their input on designing a study to produce a new tool.
The groups will be conducted at the University of East Anglia by Dr Bale and will last between 60-90minutes. An assistant facilitator/moderator will be present who is a research nurse with experience of conducting focus groups. The discussions will be audio recorded and the main themes transcribed. Qualitative research methods will be used to produce a report of this work and it will be used to assist in the design of a larger study.
Priot to designing a larger study to design, pilot and evaluate a new assessment tool for childhood hypermobility, knowledge of the patient and public case for this work and their on-going inclusion in the research itself is needed. The findings of this research will be an essential component of an NIHR project grant application in September 2014.
REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1507
Date of REC Opinion
18 Aug 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion