Biography
Dr. Mary Abboah-Offei PhD, MSc, FHEA is the Principal Investigator for the ExtraCECI Project: A cluster randomised controlled trial of community-based person-centred enhanced care for people with HIV/AIDS in Ghana; a £1,638,953.61 MRC funded study, within the School of Health and Social Care at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland, UK.
Research Interest
Dr Abboah-Offei’s research interest lie in studying person-centred care and its applicability in different contexts and disease conditions. She is particularly interested in person-centred care in the context of HIV care and its impact on the quality of life. She is currently leading an MRC funded cluster randomised controlled trial of community-based person-centred enhanced care for people with HIV/AIDS in Ghana to evaluate the effectiveness of a person-centred intervention she developed during her PhD study at King’s College London.
People with HIV have complex physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs following diagnosis and poorer health-related quality of life than the general population. Person-centred care puts the individual at the centre of their care, helping them to access the care they need, when they need it, by involving them in their own care decisions.
This research is complimented by her earlier research where developed and tested the feasibility of a community-based enhanced care intervention (CECI) to improve person-centred outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS with promising results leading to the current ExtraCECI project.
Dr Abboah-Offei also has a long-standing interest in the impact of person-centred care on other disease conditions and open to research collaborations on developing and or adapting existing person-centred interventions to improve health outcomes for patients.
The concept of person-centred care is a key component in palliative care and thus she is also open to research in palliative care, nursing and early childhood development as well as health services research using qualitative, participatory and mixed methods approaches.
Member of the Ethics Committee
Dr Abboah-Offei is a member of the Edinburgh Napier University School of Health and Social Care Research Integrity Committee and continue to uphold research integrity in ensuring ethical compliance and supporting high quality research within the school.
She has reviewed research funding applications for NIHR and reviews articles for several journals.
Media engagement
Dr Abboah-Offei is passionate about patient and public engagement in research and has taken every opportunity to involve and engage the public and stakeholders in her current research project. She has also featured in a BBC interview on "What's like to care for the dying", sharing her experience of end-of-life care.
Dr Abboah-Offei is a member of the 8th African Palliative Care Conference Organising Committee reflecting my influence in guiding discussions on critical issues in palliative care and demonstrate my leadership in fostering collaboration within the international research community.
Career History
Dr Abboah-Offei graduated with a PhD from King’s College London in 2020 with a thesis that developed a person-centred intervention for people living with HIV/AIDS and tested the feasibility of recruitment and retention using the MRC framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions under the direction of Prof Richard Harding. In 2020, she took up a post-doctoral role at the University of York, working on global health projects in Kenya and Ghana funded by the British Academy for Improving Early Childhood Development in Urban Slums and the MRC for Health System Strengthening respectively. It was in this role that she developed interest in global health research and begun to network and develop a research proposal for her future collaborative research leadership.
In October 2021, Mary moved to London and joined the School of Health and Life Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland London campus, where she lectured in Professional Health Studies (including Introduction to Palliative Care, Supporting People Facing Loss, Quality Improvement and Safety in Health and Social Care and Health and Wellbeing Across the Life Span). This move was necessitated by the need to take up a permanent academic position to be able to submit for a research grant. In October 2022, Mary moved to Edinburgh Napier University to take up the post of Lecturer in Public Health and International Health and Social care at the School of Health and Social Care. This move gave her the opportunity to submit her first research grant as principal investigator in February 2023. In September 2023, Mary was appointed as the programme leader for the MSc Healthcare Management. In January 2024, Mary was awarded her first MRC research grant of £1,638,953.61 to lead a multidisciplinary team on the ExtraCECI Project for 48 months.