Bella Vivat

Academic qualifications

1st MB, BSc (1st class Hons.), MSc  with Distinction (Edinburgh), PhD (Edinburgh)

Profile

Dr Vivat's main research focus currently is the spiritual aspects of palliative care, an area in which she has been actively interested and researching since the mid-1990s, and in which she is developing an international reputation.  Her PhD study was an ethnography of a Scottish hospice, exploring the spiritual aspects of care in that hospice.  Since 2002 she has been one of the two principal investigators leading an international project (with collaborators in the initial stages from 10 European countries and Japan) to develop a measure of spiritual wellbeing for people receiving palliative care for cancer.  

The project to develop the spiritual wellbeing measure was awarded 100,000 euros in February 2011 to fund international field-testing, which includes collaborators in Australia, Chile, Germany, Iceland, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK.  

Dr Vivat's principal interest in this measure, largely stemming from her PhD study, is as a tool for initiating discussion with people approaching the ends of their lives, and she has written and presented on this topic.

Committee responsibilities

• Member of School Board 2006-10. 
• Member of School Disability Committee. 
• Member of School Research and Scholarship Working Group.
• Member of MSc Health Promotion and Public Health and MSc Occupational Health and Safety Management course committees.
• Regular reviewer of ethics applications from staff and students, and member of sub-committee of School Research Ethics Committee investigating ethics review procedures.
• Student Dignity Advisor since 2008.
• Instigator and convenor of Qualitative Research in Rehabilitation Reading Group, 2008-10.
• Instigator and convenor of Health Division Seminar Series, 2010-date.

Teaching responsibilities

• Module leader of HH5577 Research Methods.
• Teach on HH5577 Research Methods, HH55022 Designing a Research Proposal, HH55019 Principles and Practice in Evidence-based Health Care, HH1103 Communication and Clinical Effectiveness.  
• Supervise M level dissertations for MSc Health Promotion and Public Health and MSc Occupational Health and Safety Management. 

PhD supervision

Currently supervising 4 PhD students.

1st supervisor for 1 student; 2nd supervisor for 1 student; 3rd supervisor for 2 students.

Teaching interest

Dr Vivat’s research centres on exploring the experiences of people living with chronic and/or life-limiting illnesses, framed by understandings from medical anthropology and the sociology of science, technology and medicine.

She has conducted research studies involving people with cancer and people with MS, including working as a member of research teams exploring topics such as: how women with advanced breast cancer make decisions about chemotherapy, the experiences of people living with MS, and developing quality-of-life measures for people receiving palliative care, in collaboration with other members of the Quality of Life Group (QLG) of the European Organisation for Research into Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).  As one of the two principal investigators on an EORTC QLG project to develop a measure of spiritual wellbeing for people receiving palliative care for cancer, she continues to collaborate with members of the QLG, in particular the other principal investigator, who is based at the Lynda Jackson Macmillan Centre, Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood, Middlesex, where Dr Vivat has an honorary NHS contract.

Research interests

Qualitative research methodologies, in particular ethnography and discourse analysis, with an especial interest in metaphor; spiritual aspects of health and health care; independence; and ethical understandings.

Research centres

• Brunel Institute for Ageing Studies (BIAS)
• CCentre for Research in Rehabilitation (CRR)
• Centre for Biomedicine and Society (CBAS)

Research projects and grants

• €100,000 from EORTC Quality of Life Group, awarded February 2011 for 2-year international project to field-test the EORTC QLQ-SWB36, a spiritual wellbeing measure for palliative care patients with cancer.  I am one of the two PIs on this project and approximately €40,000 of this grant is for my time on the project.
• £250 from MS Society UK for PGCert research project (June 2008) in which people with MS worked collaboratively with Design and Occupational Therapy students to design aids or adaptations for people with MS.
• €40,000 from EORTC Quality of Life Group, awarded January 2002 to fund initial development of spiritual wellbeing and social support modules.  Joint applicant (at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre).
• ESRC-funded for MSc and PhD at University of Edinburgh.

Membership and affiliation

• Membership and affiliation of professional bodies:
• Higher Education Academy (Fellow)
• British Sociological Association
• European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group
• European Association of Palliative Care
• MS Society Professional Network

Professional activities or recognition

Member of London Medical Sociology Group (meets approx. monthly at KCL).
Peer-reviewer of papers for Qualitative Health Research, European Journal of Cancer Care, Palliative Medicine, Psycho-Oncology, Journal of Palliative Care, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

Conferences

• Vivat B. Is measuring spiritual wellbeing also an intervention?  Findings from UK pilot-testing of the EORTC QLQ-SWB38.  12th Congress of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC), Lisbon, May 2011.  Oral presentation.
• Young T, Vivat B, Efficace F et al. Developing a spiritual wellbeing measure for cancer patients receiving palliative care – a multi-cultural study.  12th EAPC Congress.  Poster presentation.
• Ásgeirsdóttir GH, Sigurbjörnsson E, Sigurðardóttir V, Gunnarsdóttir S, Vivat B, Young T. An evaluation of spirituality in palliative care in Iceland using the EORTC QLQ-SWB38. 12th EAPC Congress. Poster presentation.
• Vivat B, Young T, Efficace F et al.  Developing and utilizing the EORTC QLQ-SWB36: a spiritual wellbeing measure for palliative care patients with cancer.  17th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Quality of Life Research, London, UK, October 2010. Oral presentation. Published in Quality of Life Research 19, Suppl1: 30 (abs.1246).
• Vivat B. Football on the web: Messageboards, humour and masculinity.  European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), Trento, Italy, September 2010.  Oral presentation.
• Vivat B, Young T.  Report on phase III of development of QLQ-SWB35.  European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Group biannual meeting, Pamplona, Spain, September 2009. Oral presentation.
• Vivat B. Disability, independence or interdependence: literal or metaphoric agency? Sociology of Health and Illness Research Network, 9th European Sociological Conference, Lisbon, September 2009. Oral presentation.
• Vivat B. Quantitative measures: Trojan horses for qualitative research? 40th annual conference of the BSA Medical Sociology Group, University of Sussex, September 2008. Oral presentation.
• Dong H, Vivat B.  Co-design involving people with disabilities. International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, September 2008. Oral presentation.
• Vivat B. “I’m the prime mover”: literal and metaphoric movement in how people with multiple sclerosis (MS) understand independence. Making Sense of Health, Illness and Disease, 7th global conference, Oxford, UK, July 2008. Oral presentation.
• Vivat B. “Before, I used to go travelling”: driving oneself and travelling alone as symbols of gendered understandings of independence of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Making Connections for Health: ISA RC15 Sociology of Health and Canadian Medical Sociology Association conference, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, May 2008. Oral presentation.
• Vivat B. The division of labour, expertise, and the multi-disciplinary team: conventionalising “total pain/care” in a Scottish hospice.  Unhealthy Professional Boundaries? Working Together in Health and Social Care conference, Goodenough College, London, December 2007. Oral presentation.
• Vivat B. Situated ethics and struggles between ethical levels. 38th annual conference of the BSA Medical Sociology Group, Edinburgh, September 2006. Oral presentation. 

Publications

Journal Papers

(2012) Vivat, B., Young, T., Efficace, F., Sigurdadóttir, V., Arraras, JI., Asgeirsdóttir, GH., Brédart, A., Costantini, A., Kobayashi, K., Singer, S. and On behalf of the EORTC Quality of Life Group., Cross-cultural development of the EORTC QLQ-SWB36: A stand-alone measure of spiritual wellbeing for palliative care patients with cancer, Palliative Medicine

(2011) Reynolds, F., Vivat, B. and Prior, S., Visual art-making as a resource for living positively with arthritis: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of older women's accounts, Journal of Aging Studies 25 (3) : 328- 337

(2010) Edmonds, P., Hart, S., Gao, W., Vivat, B., Burman, R., Silber, E. and Higginson, IJ., Palliative care for people severely affected by multiple sclerosis: Evaluation of a novel palliative care service, Multiple Sclerosis 16 (5) : 627- 636

(2010) Reynolds, FA. and Vivat, B., Art-making and identity work: A qualitative study of women living with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME)., Arts and Health 2 (1) : 67- 80

(2008) Vivat, B., “Going down” and “getting deeper”: Physical and metaphorical location and movement in relation to death and spiritual care in a Scottish hospice, Mortality 13 (1) : 42- 64 Download publication

(2008) Vivat, B., Measures of spiritual issues for palliative care patients: A literature review, Palliative Medicine 22 (7) : 859- 868 Download publication

(2008) Reynolds, F., Vivat, B. and Prior, S., Women's experiences of increasing subjective well-being in CFS/ME through leisure-based arts and crafts activities: A qualitative study, Disability and Rehabilitation 30 (17) : 1279- 1288

(2007) Edmonds, P., Vivat, B., Burman, R., Silber, E. and Higginson, IJ., Loss and change: Experiences of people severely affected by multiple sclerosis, Palliative Medicine 21 (2) : 101- 107 Download publication

(2007) Edmonds, P., Vivat, B., Burman, R., Silber, E. and Higginson, IJ., 'Fighting for everything': service experiences of people severely affected by multiple sclerosis, Multiple Sclerosis 13 (5) : 660- 667

(2006) Grunfeld, EA., Maher, EJ., Browne, S., Ward, P., Young, T., Vivat, B., Walker, G., Wilson, C., Potts, HW., Westcombe, AM., Richards, MA. and Ramirez, AJ., Advanced breast cancer patients' perceptions of decision making for palliative chemotherapy, Journal of Clinical Oncology 24 (7) : 1090- 1098

(2006) Reynolds, F. and Vivat, B., Narratives of art-making in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis: Three case studies, The Arts in Psychotherapy 33 (5) : 435- 445 Download publication

Book Chapters

(2012) VIVAT, B., Quality of life. In: Cobb, MR., Puchalski, CM. and Rumbold, B. eds. Oxford Textbook of Spirituality in Healthcare. Oxford University Press 341- 346

(2002) Vivat, B., Situated ethics and feminist ethnography in a West of Scotland hospice. In: Bondi, L. ed. Subjectivities, Knowledges, and Feminist Geographies: The Subjects and Ethics of Social Research. Maryland, USA : Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc 236- 252