Dr Claire Reidy CPsychol, PhD, MSc, BA
Research Fellow
Dr Claire Reidy is a Chartered Psychologist and Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences.
Evidence demonstrates that the biomedical approach to health is not enabling people to self-manage day-to-day and so novel, holistic and evidence-based approaches to support people to improve or maintain their mental and physical wellbeing are needed.
Claire works as a Research Fellow on the international Optimization of community resources and systems of support to enhance the process of living with Parkinson’s Disease: a multisectoral intervention (OPTIM-PARK) study in the School of Health Sciences. Claire is also a Research Fellow in the School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education for the REDUCE study, which aims to identify feasible, safe, reliable and cost-effective ways of helping patients withdraw from long-term antidepressants using a web-based intervention and telephone psychological support.
Claire’s research experience is predominantly in Implementation Science and Health Psychology, especially in terms of understanding and supporting self-management strategies, and the role of social networks and social support in relation to living with a long-term condition such as diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, or supporting people to taper off anti-depressants. This work is largely in terms of intervention development in collaboration with people living with diabetes, Parkinson's or using anti-depressants, and testing the value, impact and feasibility of developed interventions.
Claire’s PhD comprised of a mixed-method approach to determine the factors which enable someone with Type 1 diabetes to incorporate a new technology, such as an insulin pump, into their everyday lives, and implementing a social support networking tool named GENIE (www.genie.soton.ac.uk). This PhD was funded through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) in Wessex, and by the Improvement Science Fellowship at The Health Foundation.
Prior to research Claire worked as a Project Worker with people experiencing long-term and enduring mental health problems in the community and voluntary sector. This work included undertaking psychological therapies and interventions, person-centred-therapy support, and coordination and project management of mental health user-involvement.