The ‘Baby Buddy’ app, created by the Best Beginnings Charity is available via NHS and in use across maternity NHS Trusts and user support organisations in the UK. Baby Buddy ‘provides trusted, evidence-based information and self-care tools to help parents build their knowledge and confidence during the transition to parenthood and throughout the early stages of parenting’ (https://www.bestbeginnings.org.uk/baby-buddy). It is designed to be particularly accessible to pregnant women and parents with lower literacy levels or those for women English is not a first language.
The Best Beginnings Charity would like to evaluate specific elements of uptake and adoption of the information within the App by pregnant woman and new parents. The doctoral study will be a collaboration between the PhD student, the supervisory team at Kingston University and representatives of the charity. The research could take a mixed methods approach to examine uptake of the App, how the App is perceived by service users, and what impacts it has on the quality and personalisation of care.
This PhD project would suit a clinical academic with previous research experience who would like to develop collaborative relationships with charity sector organisation and learn about how this sector works with partner organisations. The project will require robust patient & public engagement and involvement and may adopt a participatory action research or ethnographic methodology.
We welcome PhD applications on similar themes to those proposed. We are committed to creating a workplace that promotes and values diversity. We strongly encourage applications from people from diverse backgrounds including gender identity, race, age, class, and ethnicity.
You will normally need a postgraduate masters degree or a first/upper second class honours degree or equivalent in a subject relevant to your proposed research programme. Please check the relevant faculty's research degrees webpage for specific requirements.
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