Solved: PSYC5603 Interventions in long-term conditions (LTC) assignment

Guidance notes
The following guidelines are designed to help you get started on your chronic illness assignment. The coursework is designed to assess your ability to identify and synthesise relevant material, critically evaluate empirical findings and design an improved intervention to address identified limitations.

You will complete one piece of work in which you critically evaluate existing interventions for a specified condition (identifying strengths and limitations) and formulate an intervention that addresses highlighted issues, whilst remaining practicable within a healthcare setting. This
assessment will address the five learning outcomes listed in the module guide through a consideration of condition-specific issues, a critique of existing interventions and the formulation of modifications.

These notes are designed to highlight the components that markers will be looking for when they come to assess your work. Please read them carefully before you begin planning your assignment. A copy of this guide has been posted on the Blackboard site for this module.

The word count guidance for this piece of assessment is 3500-4000 words (not including the title or references); it comprises 100% of the module assessment and is must-pass. The deadline for submission of this assignment is 12 noon on Friday 12th March 2021. Full details about submission procedures are included in the module guide.

The title for this assignment is:
Evaluate existing self-management interventions for either Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) or asthma in adults and formulate an improved intervention. This should address highlighted strengths and weaknesses, whilst remaining practicable within a healthcare setting.
Once you have decided which condition to look at you will need to choose the focus of your intervention. For example, you may wish to develop an intervention for patients or for partners/primary caregivers. To an extent this will be informed by the condition you select and the limitations you identify.
The following sections give pointers to what markers will be looking for and the types of skills required. On the whole, it follows the structure of a “traditional” essay, but you will be expected to demonstrate additional skills in terms of developing an improved intervention.

Introduction (approximately 700 words)
In the introduction you’ll need to provide information about the condition you have chosen to focus on with regard to symptoms, impact, management, prognosis etc. and outline why a selfmanagement intervention is appropriate for this particular condition.

Main body of essay
Evaluation (approximately 1000 words) – The first section of the main body should be a description and evaluation of appropriate theories and models, and previous empirical work on interventions, highlighting strengths and weaknesses. It makes sense to review interventions primarily in your chosen condition although you may also want to highlight relevant work in other areas.

Intervention development (approximately 1000 words) – We want you to formulate an improved intervention, specifying who it is aimed at (e.g. the patient), detailing the changes you would make, and providing the evidence to support the modifications you are suggesting. You can use elements
of interventions from other conditions but you will need to make the case for why they are appropriate for your condition.
An important point to remember is that your intervention must be practicable within the constraints of the NHS, so an intervention which requires one-to-one contact one day a week for six months would not be acceptable, however effective it has been shown to be!

Testing the intervention (approximately 700 words) – You will need to provide suggestions for how the intervention could be tested; e.g. what would count as a “successful” intervention? Which outcome measures would be appropriate?

Conclusion (approximately 500 words)
In this section you need to summarise the main points in your assignment i.e. your evaluation of existing research, how you would develop a new intervention, and how you would test it.