Lecturer in Psychology/Psychometrics

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine -Faculty of Public Health & Policy

We are seeking an enthusiastic person to join a multi-disciplinary team undertaking a new research programme focused on dementia care. The post-holder will undertake psychometric analysis of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) from two evaluative studies. The post-holder will be involved in establishing basic psychometric properties of the instruments in this context (reliability, validity responsiveness) and contributing to the measurement of health related quality of life (HRQL) amongst people with dementia. The work will develop innovative solutions to some of the methodological challenges of measuring HRQL in dementia. You should have an interest in PROMs and in exploring psychometric solutions to improve measurement. The post-holder will have the opportunity to influence future topics for analysis and to explore methodological questions. The post is for 30 months. The post-holder will be based in the Department of Health Services Research & Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

BackgroundThe post is funded by the Department of Health (England) and the programme involves the evaluation of two aspects of dementia care - memory assessment services (MAS) and the withdrawal of anti-psychotic drugs from people with dementia – as well as methodological research on the measurement of health related quality of life (HRQL) of people with dementia. The programme is a collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Society.

The programme aims to develop solutions to some of the methodological issues of using PROMs in routine settings with people with dementia. The psychometric work will use methods from both Classical Test Theory and Rasch analysis and will explore six key issues in the routine use of PROMs in dementia: 1) Does the PROM have fundamental measurement properties? 2) Can proxy reports be substituted for self-reports? 3) Is the measure sensitive to minimally important differences? 4) Is the use of PROMs acceptable? 5) Is it cost-effective to use PROMs in dementia? 6) Can dementia PROMs be mapped to generic PROMs?

Salary will be in the lecturer range £42,043 - £47,322 per annum, inclusive. 

Applications should be made on-line via our website at apply button below and the reference for this post isSS02. Applications should also include a CV and the names and email contacts of 2 referees who can be contacted immediately if shortlisted. Any queries regarding the application process may be addressed tojobs@lshtm.ac.uk. Please quote reference SS02. Closing date for the receipt of applications is Wednesday 30 January 2013. 

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is committed to being an equal opportunities employer.