Multiple projects in frailty and geriatric research
Project 1: GOAL Vascular Surgery
Fields:
- Geriatrics
- Health services
- Surgery and subspecialties
Location: Centre for Health Services Research
Type of student: Higher Degree Research only i.e. PhD or MPhil (intercalated MD-PhD & MD-MPhil)
Type of work:
- Chart reviews
- Clinical work
- Literature review
- Qualitative methods
- Statistical analysis
- Systematic review
Brief synopsis:
Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment for Older Elective Vascular Surgery Patients to Increase Attainment of Patient-Identified Goals.
Frailty is highly prevalent in Vascular Surgery patients and is associated with poor postoperative outcomes. Given the risks, it is essential that Surgeons understand what patients hope to achieve by having elective surgery. Preoperative Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) has been shown to improve outcomes; however, it is not known whether it helps surgical patients to achieve their goals.
This project will explore frailty and patient-prioritised goals in older patients awaiting elective vascular surgery at Princess Alexandra Hospital and will examine whether CGA influences attainment of these goals. It will be a mixed-methods study.
Prerequisite skills: As a HDR, the student would be supported to acquire research skills. This project is best suited to a clinician-researcher.
Project 2: Projects related to sex differences in frailty
Fields:
- Epidemiology
- Geriatrics
- Public health
Location: Centre for Health Services Research
Type of student:
- Higher Degree Research only i.e. PhD or MPhil (intercalated MD-PhD & MD-MPhil)
- 4 Unit Masters of Public Health (MPH) Student
Type of work:
- Literature review
- Qualitative methods
- Secondary data analysis
- Statistical analysis
- Systematic review
Brief synopsis:
There is great scope to further investigate sex differences in morbidity, mortality and frailty. We are particularly interested in the hypothesis that social factors and health behaviours related to an individual’s gender identity may augment the impact of sex on frailty and mortality. This intersection of biological sex and gender identity, as it relates to frailty and the sex-frailty paradox has not been addressed in the literature to date. Research projects may adopt qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
We are also interested in the relationship between childbearing/rearing and later life frailty. We used the ELSA dataset to commence investigations of this relationship; however, there is much more to be done. The ELSA dataset is rich with information regarding socioeconomic and health behaviour variables and there is potential to use ‘mother-father dyads’ to explore the intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing the relationship between childrearing and later life frailty in each sex. ELSA also collected detailed information regarding non-biological offspring (including adopted, fostered and step-children) and would enable a comparison of biological and non-biological parents in relation to frailty. There is also potential to explore reproduction-frailty hypotheses using Australian datasets, such as the ALSWH and CHAMPs studies.
Prerequisite skills: Students would benefit from having statistical experience; however, this can be supported for HDRs.
