Dr Paul Clarkson PhD, BSc (Hons), BSc (Hons), MCSP
Honorary Research Fellow
Dr Paul Clarkson is a Honorary Research Fellow in Health Sciences with a background in physiotherapy and in the private sector. Paul is part of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Wessex, Long-Term Conditions (LTC) theme – Innovation and technology for healthy living work stream. He is also a member of the Active Living and Rehabilitation Research Group and a value-added researcher for the Centre for Sport, Exercise and Osteoarthritis Research Versus Arthritis.
His current work is looking at the maintenance of physical activity behaviour and the potential for digital/non-digital interventions to support people with a LTC to maintain activity into the longer term (Programme lead: Prof Maria Stokes). This includes jointly leading a scoping review with an interdisciplinary group of researchers and clinicians in universities across Wessex and with colleagues at the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland.
Current work also includes evaluation of Exercise Referral Schemes and a project looking at the implementation of digital tools for self-management within existing structures and pathways.
Previous work included the NIHR CLAHRC funded CONTAIN Joint Pain study, which aimed to design, develop and test an accessible digital personalised self-management web tool for people with joint pain and link it to the Genie social network activation tool.
Paul's doctoral work was entitled 'An interdisciplinary approach to pressure ulcer prevention in the community setting: Exploring the barriers and facilitators for implementation.' Supervised by Professor Lisette Schoonhoven, Professor Dan Bader, Dr Peter Worsley. Alongside his undergraduate degree in Physiotherapy, he also has a BSc (Hons) in Media Technology from the University of Surrey.
He has published work in the Journal of Physiotherapy, Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare and Rheumatology and presented at international conferences. He has also taught on modules of the pre-registration physiotherapy courses in the school.
Paul has gained experience of using qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches for data collection and analysis. He has also designed and developed both face-to-face and digital healthcare interventions.