Dr Jessica Bollen (She/ Her)

Jessica Bollen is a mixed methods Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. Jessica has a research interest in improving health outcomes and quality of life for people with chronic conditions such as stroke, cancer, heart failure and physical frailty. Prior to this she was a Trial Manager in the University of Exeter Clinical Trials Unity (ExeCTU) and an Associate Research Fellow in the Primary Care Group working on the REtirement in ACTion (REACT) project. REACT was a multi-centre randomised control trial (Bath/ Bristol, Birmingham and Devon) to evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a group, community based physical exercise programme for people who are beginning to show signs of mobility related disability.

With an undergraduate degree in Human Biology and Sport and Exercise Science, Jessica has a keen interest in the human body, how it functions and the changes that can be brought about by exercise, aging, diseases and disabilities. Through working in gyms specialising in rehabilitation, an area of particular interest, Jessica was intrigued by individual’s attitudes to rehabilitation programs and their outcome expectations. This lead her to apply for the PhD she competed in February 2017. The end result was to create a valid and reliable questionnaire for stroke survivors to determine which individuals may be having particular problems conducting their rehabilitation programs and therefore, possibly not obtaining the outcome in terms of recovery they may like to achieve. More recently she has become interested in physical frailty and how this can be assessed in a clinical setting.

Interests:

Broad Research Specialisms

• Psychometrics
• Questionnaire development
• Adherence
• Rehabilitation
• Physical activity & health
• Frailty

Research Positions

For her PhD Jessica researched adherence to exercise based rehabilitation programmes in individuals who have had a stroke. The eventual outcome was a questionnaire which was psychometrically sound. A mixed method approach was used in developing the questionnaire; interviews and focus groups were conducted with stroke survivors, exercise professionals and, physiotherapists resulting in items for the questionnaire. The subsequent data from the completed questionnaires underwent Rasch analysis in addition to other statistical tests to assess the validity and reliability of the measure. The measure has used in Canada in a research trial.

In her first Associate Research Fellow role in the Mental Health Group Jessica researched inflammation responses and the effect they may have on cognition and information processing. In addition to this she is also supported a PhD student with recruitment and administration on a project looking at the role of worry and rumination in predicting depression in people with coronary heart disease.

Following this she was an Associate Research Fellow on the REtirement in ACTion (REACT) study which is a multi-centre randomised control trial. This study was looking at the efficacy and cost effectiveness of a community group based exercise programme for people over the age of 65 who may be beginning to experience mobility related disability. During this role she developed a keen interest in frailty, how to assess it, and ways to establish if a patient is frail/ becoming frail, and how this could be measured in a clinical setting. Following this Jessica became a Trial Manager and Research Fellow in the Clinical Trials Unit at Exeter, working on a variety of trials.

After leaving the CTU Jessica worked for Prof Mark Tarrant, completing a report for the Stroke Association and writing a HTA grant proposal. Jessica also took a post at Kings College London, undertaking reviews looking at methods to assess gait and balance, and observational measures remotely/ digitally in older adults.

More recently Jessica worked for Prof Julia Frost on the process evaluation for REACH-HFpEF trial. The trial is assessing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of home-based cardiac rehabilitation programme ‘REACH-HF’ plus usual care (intervention) versus usual care alone (control) in heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction and their caregivers.

Currently Jessica is working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for Prof Richard Neal where she is undertaking a systematic review evaluating used and novel techniques to detect upper Gastrointestinal cancers in Primary Care.

Qualifications:

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) (2024)

• PhD in Medical Studies (2017) with the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry
• CYQ gym instructor level 2 (2013)
• BSc Joint Honours, Human Biology and Sport and Exercise Science (2011)