PhD Awarded to Katherine Easton

Congratulations to Katherine Easton, a researcher in the RAT research team and CLAHRC SY, who has been awarded her PhD from the University of Manchester, School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work. Dr Easton has been researching the prevalence, nature and impact of anxiety on health outcomes in people with a diagnosis of heart failure. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of the measurement of anxiety it was found that many self-report tools are currently used to assess anxiety, and that not all of these tools are appropriate or have clinical utility in patients with a physical long-term condition. Using survey methods, emotional symptoms were found to impact on patient reported health-related quality of life, to the same degree as physical symptoms; which suggests clinicians should attend to patient’s emotional health if they are to improve patients’ quality of life.

Katherine has been disseminating her research this year at national conferences and will be publishing the systematic review of prevalence and measurement of anxiety in heart failure samples in early 2014.