Brendan Mulhern

HEDS, ScHARR
The University of Sheffield
Regent Court
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA
UK

Office:

Tel: (+44) (0)114 222 0794
Fax: (+44) (0)114 272 4095

E-mail: b.mulhern@sheffield.ac.uk

Biography

I joined ScHARR in August 2009. Before this I was working at the Leeds Institute of Health Sciences primarily developing a web based intervention for alcohol use (www.unitcheck.co.uk). I also worked on projects related to the CORE-OM and other standard measures of mental health. In 2005 I completed a Master of Research degree at the University of Birmingham where I investigated the sub acute effects of recreational drugs on mental health and cognitive performance. I graduated with a BSc in Psychology from the University of Wolverhampton in 2003.

I am currently working on a range of projects concerned with the development and assessment of both generic and condition specific preference based measures. I am also involved in the evaluation of condition specific non-preference based measures. This involves psychometric and item response theory analysis, web and paper based experimental studies, and also systematic reviewing.

Research interests

My research interests are:

• Generating preference-based indices for use in economic evaluation
• Validating and assessing the performance of preference-based measures of health across a range of areas
• Methodological issues around the valuation of preference-based measures in preparation for the re-evaluation of the EQ-5D
• Mapping between generic and condition specific measures
• The assessment of health related quality of life
• Investigating the relationship between widely used measures of mental health
• E-health interventions
• Substance use and mental health

Teaching interests

My teaching interests are:

• Research methods
• Quantitative statistics
• Psychology

Current projects

I am currently working on the following projects:

• Preparatory study for the Re-evaluation of the EQ-5D Tariff (PRET)
• Investigating the use of generic and condition specific measures in NICE decision making (NICEQOL)
• Generation of preference-based indices from DEMQOL and DEMQOL-Proxy for use in economic evaluation
• Development of a condition specific preference based measure for epilepsy from the NEWQOL
• Development of a condition specific preference based measure for diabetes from the DHP-18
• Validating generic preference-based measures of health in mental health populations and estimating mapping functions for widely used specific measures
• Investigating the relationship between the CORE-OM and HADS measures of mental health

Key publications

• Bewick BM, West RM, Gill J, O’May F, Mulhern B, Barkham M, Hill AJ (in press). Providing web-based feedback and social norms information to reduce student alcohol intake: a multi-site investigation. Journal of Medical Internet Research.
• Twigg E, Barkham M, Bewick BM, Mulhern B, Connell J, Cooper M (2009). The Young Person's CORE: Development of a brief outcome measure for young people. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research Journal 9(3):160-8.
• Bewick BM, Gill J, Mulhern B, Barkham M, Hill AJ (2008). Using electronic surveying to assess psychological distress within the UK university student population: a multi-site pilot investigation. E-journal of Applied Psychology 4(2):1-5.
• Bewick BM, Mulhern B, Barkham M, Trusler K, Hill AJ, Stiles WB (2008). Changes in undergraduate student alcohol consumption as they progress through university. BMC Public Health 8:163.
• Bewick BM, Trusler K, Barkham M, Hill AJ, Cahill J, Mulhern B (2008). The effectiveness of web based interventions designed to decrease alcohol consumption – a systematic review. Preventive Medicine 47(1):17-26.
• Bewick BM, Trusler K, Mulhern B, Barkham M, Hill AJ (2008). The feasibility and effectiveness of a web-based personalised feedback and social norms alcohol intervention in UK university students: A randomised control trial. Addictive Behaviors 33(9):1192-1198.