Kate Gridley

Thesis

Thesis supervisors

Professor Yvonne Birks

Dr Kate Baxter

Thesis topic

Dementia research, research methods and innovative approaches to measuring outcomes.

Thesis summary

Relatively little is known about the practice and implications of using standardised research measures with people living with dementia at different degrees of severity. It is crucial that we learn more about the ways that dementia symptoms and their progression can affect both the quality (reliability and validity) of quantitative data, and the experiences of research participants.

I plan to investigate the quantitative data collection encounter from the perspectives of participants living with dementia and research workers administering standardised measures. I will also consider the impact of dementia symptoms as they change over time, combined with the interview context and questionnaire content, on the types and quality of data collected.

Research

Research interests

Kate is researching the use of quantitative measures with people with dementia. She is interested in the experiences of people involved in quantitative dementia research and ways to improve these experiences without compromising data quality. Guides to best practice in dementia research emphasise the importance of flexibility and foregrounding the voice of the person with dementia, but how does this apply in large scale quantitative studies and trials? She has identified some important gaps in the our knowledge of the data collection encounter and plans to address these through fieldwork linked to the DETERMIND cohort study.

General research interests

• Dementia and dementia care
• Research methods (and the perspectives of research participants)
• Health and social care (and the perspectives of people using services)
• Disability and long-term conditions

Teaching

I teach a session on life story work for the Social Work Masters students. 

Publications

Gridley, K., Baxter, K., Birks, Y., Newbould, L., Allan, S., Roland, D., ... and Jones, K. (2022). Social care causes of delayed transfer of care (DTOC) from hospital for older people: Unpicking the nuances of ‘provider capacity and ‘patient choice’. Health & Social Care in the Community. Online https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13911

Gridley, K., and Parker, G. M. (2021). Specialist nursing case management support for carers of people with dementia: a qualitative study comparing experiences of carers with and without Admiral Nursing. . Health and Social Care in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13437 

Gridley, K., Birks, Y., and Parker, G. (2020). Exploring good practice in life story work with people with dementia: The findings of a qualitative study looking at the multiple views of stakeholders. Dementia, 19(2), 182-194.

Gridley, K., Aspinal, F. J., Parker, G. M., Weatherly, H. L. A., Neves De Faria, R. I., Longo, F., and Van Den Berg, B. (2019). Specialist nursing support for unpaid carers of people with dementia: a mixed-methods feasibility study. Health Services and Delivery Research, 7(12), 1-232. https://doi.org/10.3310/hsdr07120

Gridley K (2016) Understanding the outcomes of life story work in P. Kaiser and R. Eley (eds.) Life Story Work with People with Dementia: Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary People. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Story-Work-People-Dementia/dp/184905505X

Gridley, K., Brooks, J. C., Birks, Y. F., Baxter, C. R., and Parker, G. M. (2016). Improving care for people with dementia: development and initial feasibility study for evaluation of life story work in dementia care. Health Services and Delivery Research. ISSN 2050-4357 

Gridley K, Brooks J and Glendinning C (2014) Good practice in social care: the views of people with severe and complex needs and those who support them. Health & Social Care in the community 22(6), 588–597.

Gridley, K., Brooks, J. and Glendinning, C. (2014). Good practice in social care for disabled adults and older people with severe and complex needs: evidence from a scoping review. Health and Social Care in the Community 22(3), 234–248

Gridley, K., Spiers, G., Aspinal, F., Bernard, S., Atkin, K., and Parker, G. (2012). Can general practitioner commissioning deliver equity and excellence? Evidence from two studies of service improvement in the English NHS. Journal of health services research & policy, 17(2), 87-93.

Gridley, K., Aspinal, F., Bernard, S., and Parker, G. (2011). Services that promote continuity of care: key findings from an evaluation of the national service framework for long‐term neurological conditions. Social Care and Neurodisability. 2(3). 147-157.

Biography

Kate Gridley is an SSCR NIHR Research Fellow with 15 years’ experience undertaking health and social care research at the University of York’s Social Policy Research Unit. She has a particular interest in research with people with dementia and carers, and has led and worked on several studies in this area including an NIHR evaluation of life story work with people with dementia and an NIHR study of specialist nursing services for carers.  Kate works on the DETERMIND study undertaking qualitative longitudinal research into the experiences and outcomes of people self-funding social care. She is also undertaking a PhD attached to DETERMIND looking at the experiences and views of people involved in dementia research and the implications for future research. She holds an MSc Social Research Methods, University of York (Distinction) and BA Social Studies, Newcastle University (First Class).

Advisory committees

Kate is on the advisory committees of the following current projects: 

 - Adapting the Easy Read Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT-ER) for older social care users who need additional support to self-report: a content validity study.

 - Living alone with dementia: managing without informal support to contact and navigate services.