Dr Kay Price

Hi, thanks for reviewing my homepage and taking the time to find out a bit more about me. I am a passionate advocate of nursing and health more broadly defined. I very much like to be involved in working through the political issues that surround health, health services and nursing so as to advance the health of all people. I am committed to the quality use of medicines and am on the Board of the National Prescribing Service Limited - Director, Nursing.

My areas of research interest include collaborative projects that involve a critical analytical approach. What I like to do is to challenge assumptions and taken-for-granted positions so as to advance thinking and progress health care and health outcomes. I am a Chief Investigator of the North West Adelaide Health (Cohort) Study [NWAHS] (see http://www.nwadelaidehealthstudy.org/project_overview_bio.asp ). NWAHS is a successful epidemiological population-based cohort exploring chronic conditions and quality of life of 4,000 randomly selected adult participants living in the North West region of Adelaide, South Australia. NWAHS reflects a significant collaboration between the North Western Adelaide Health Service (The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Lyell McEwin Health Service campuses), the SA Department of Health, the University of Adelaide, and the University of South Australia.

http://www.library.unisa.edu.au/adt-root/public/adt-SUSA-20030501-145110/index.html

• Research and Research Training
• Critical Thinking
• Political and professional issues in the health industry
• Care of older people in all contexts of care
• Quality Use of Medicines
• Living with Chronic Illness
• Primary health care

Member, Advisory Committee, National Parental Labelling Project, Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care

NWAHS Management Committee member and Chief Investigator, North West Adelaide Health (Cohort) Study, a collaboration between Government of South Australia Department of Human Services, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Lyell McEwin Health Service, University of Adelaide, University of South Australia

Member, International Union Health Promotion and Health Education

Member, Ethics Centre of South Australia

Royal College of Nursing, Australia

Australian Nursing Federation (SA Branch)

National representative member, Australian Pharmaceutical Advisory Council, Australian Government (now dissolved)

past Member, Nurses Board of South Australia, Professional Practice and Strategic Projects Advisory Committee

Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of South Australia

Master of Nursing, Flinders University of South Australia

Diploma of Teaching (Nurse Education), Flinders University of South Australia

Bachelor of Nursing, Flinders University of South Australia

Registered Nurse

• Current Research A novel approach to influencing self-care - Funded by the Department of Health & Ageing – Sharing Health Care Initiative - $566,511 (2009 - 2011) Previous research has shown that people who live with chronic conditions desire to live as well as possible and need to feel as if they have some control in their lives. It is evident that people with chronic conditions make different and varied decisions everyday which impact on their health outcomes; they take risks, and learn from their mistakes. Trial and error decisions may have a huge impact on health outcomes, particularly for people living life with cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The conceptualisation of everyday self-care decisions, informed by trial and error practices to date, has received minimal attention. However, we cannot ignore the impact that trial and error practices as self-care strategies may be having on the health outcomes and health services usage of people with chronic conditions. This study will collect unique and valuable data not currently available to Australia policy makers, stakeholders, researchers or the public. Our research hypothesis is: Trial and error as a personal self-care strategy has the potential to influence social, health and functional outcomes for people with chronic conditions including their health care usage and health care costs. The aim of this systematic mixed methods study is to provide a different understanding of self-care that will inform health professionals and policy makers of the best strategies to support targeted groups of people with chronic conditions to effectively manage their health status.
• PhD research - A Construction of Pain

  My thesis is based on a poststructural way of thinking, which is understood as offering different ways in which to theorise about knowledge and language. I articulate how the relationship between language and knowledge shapes nurses' understanding of the self (that is, their subjectivity or subject position) in relation to how pain is given meaning. Nurses' subjectivity will be different within different meanings of pain and in each of these different meanings there will be different political implications.

  What is significant in utilising a poststructural way of thinking is that it enables questioning as to how a word pain is given a reality by nurses in relation to how pain is given meaning and the resultant political implications for nurses and nursing of this constructed reality.

  My interest has been to understand the way in which nurses shape their own subject position and whether in this position nurses adopt meaning and practices which are not necessarily aligned to their own interests or the well being of persons having surgery. I was particularly interested in the issue of subordination, the subject position in which an individual is positioned supposedly under the authority or control of others - that is, dominated.

  My thesis is not about discounting how it is that nurses give pain meaning. Rather, in understanding how a specific language and knowledge system positions nurses and maintains this positioning, nurses will be better placed to offer resistance or challenge where necessary. Resistance or challenge by nurses may be of particular importance to allow the possibility for practises to emerge that are based on a nursing way of thinking. Also, resistance or challenge may allow the possibility for pain to mean different things to different people.
  
  

• Another research interest is to understand power and politics in social institutions such as hospitals or community services

  Another research interest is to understand power and politics in social institutions such as hospitals or community services. I believe it is necessary to analyse these institutions not from what is already organised, but how organisation is given meaning. In order to do so requires thinking outside of the dominant way that has structured how in Western societies knowledge and language has been generated to focus on how power has been invested in knowledge and language.

  I research from a poststructural perspective of organisation where, rather than organisation being viewed as structure (organisation as noun), organisation is viewed as process (organisation as verb). It is my view that how meaning is given to organisation influences power and politics in social institutions. Through an exploration of how organisational strategies or processes have been produced, how power and politics function in social institutions can be exposed.
  
  

Grant JF, Taylor AW, Ruffin RE, Wilson DH, Phillips PJ, Adams RJT, Price K and the North West Adelaide Health Study Team. (IN PRESS) Cohort profile: The North West Adelaide Health Study (NWAHS) International Journal of Epidemiology accepted 5th November 2008

Price K. (2009) Health Literacy and ACE for Social Sustainability. Chapter 11 In: Peter Willis, Stephen McKenie and Roger Harris (Eds) Rethinking Work and Learning: Adult Vocational Education for Social Sustainability. UNESCO-UNEVOC Volume 9 Springer ISBN 978-1-4020-8963-3

Nicholls, D., Walton, J., Price, K. (2009) Making breathing your business: Enterprising practices at the margins of orthodoxy health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 13 (3): 337 – 360 SAGE publications

Adams RJ, Tucker G, Price K, Hill C, Appleton SL, Wilson DH, Taylor AW, Ruffin RE (2009) Self-reported adverse events in healthcare that cause harm: results from the North West Adelaide Health Study Medical Journal of Australia 190 (9): 484-488 available online at http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/ada11131_fm.html

Price K., and Taylor A. (2008) The ‘yin and yang’ of epidemiology - the North West Adelaide Health Study as an example of a successful cohort merging quantitative and qualitative ways of thinking. Public Health Bulletin South Australia 5(3) November: 22 – 29 http://www.dh.sa.gov.au/pehs/publications/public-health-bulletin.htm

Kralik D, Koch T, Price K, (2008) The contribution of qualitative research to understanding the experiences of pain, In: HM Wittink & DB Carr (Eds) “Pain Management: Evidence, Outcomes and Quality of Life. A Sourcebook” Edinburgh: Saunders, Elsevier, Chapter 3.

Price K., Cheek J., Taylor A., Ruffin R. (2008) Understanding shortness of breath vis-à-vis a diagnosis of asthma in older adults: a qualitative descriptive study. Geriaction 26(3): 22 – 27

Price K & Cheek J (2007) Avoiding death: the ultimate challenge in the provision of contemporary healthcare? Health Sociology Review 16(5);

Price K (2007) Nurses in general practice settings: roles & responsibilities Contemporary Nurse 26(1): 7 – 14

Price K (2007) Debating the influence of self-reports by people living with chronic disease on healthy ageing and longevity Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1114: 144 – 153

Price K, (2007) Debating the value of professional boundaries and expertise, Focus on Health Professional Education: An Multi- Disciplinary Journal 8(3): 116 – 124

Price K (2006) Qualitative proposal: nursing. IN: K Punch (Ed) Developing Effective Research Proposals London, SAGE Publications pp. 128 – 138

Grant, J.F, Chittleborough, C.R, Taylor, A.W., Dal Grande, E., Wilson, D.H., Phillips, P.J., Adams, R.J., Cheek, J., Price, K., Gill T.G., and Ruffin, R.E. (2006) The North West Adelaide Health Study: detailed methods and baseline segmentation of a cohort for selected chronic diseases Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations 2006, 3:4 (12 Apr 2006) http://www.epi-perspectives.com/content/3/1/4

Price, K (2006) Health Promotion and some implications of consumer choice Journal of Nursing Management 14: 494-501

Price, K (2006) Understanding Life Transitions Australian Journal of Primary Health 12 92): 9 – 10

Price K, Patterson, E., & Hegney, D. (2006) Being strategic: Utilising consumer views to better promote an expanded role for nurses in Australian general practice Collegian 13(4): 16 – 21

Kralik D., Price K., Warren J. & Koch T. (2006) Issues in Data Generation using Email Group Conversations for Nursing Research. Journal of Advanced Nursing Volume 53, Issue 2, Page 213 – 220

Patterson, E., Forrester, K., Price, K. & Hegney, D. (2005) Risk reduction in general practice and the role of the receptionist. Journal of Law and Medicine, 12 (3): 340-347.

Patterson, E., Price, K. & Hegney, D. (2005). Primary health care and general practice nurses: What is the nexus? Australian Journal of Primary Health 11 (1): 47-54.

Asquith M & Price K (2005) Social Work Ethics – Practice and Practitioners New Global Development: Journal of International and Comparative Social Welfare Vol. XXI, 1: 2005 pages10 – 17

Price K & Asquith M (2005) The place of personal moral responsibility in the ethical conduct of research: a challenge to ethics committees and researchers New Global Development: Journal of International and Comparative Social Welfare Vol. XXI, 1: 2005 pages 67 – 74

Kralik D., Warren J., Price K., Koch T. & Pignone G. (2005) The Ethics of Research using Electronic Mail Discussion Groups. Journal of Advanced Nursing 52 (5), 537 - 545.

Kralik D, Koch T, Price K, Telford K (2005) Women’s experiences of fatigue in chronic illness, Journal of Advanced Nursing. 52(4), 372 – 380

Kralik D, Telford K, Campling F, Crouch P, Koch T, Price K (2005) Moving on: the transition to living well with chronic illness Australian Journal of Holistic Nursing 12 (2): 13 -22

Price K Alde P Provis C Stack S Harris R (2004) What hinders and what helps: searching for solutions to mature aged unemployment and the residential aged care workforce crisis. Australasian Journal on Ageing 23 (4): 177 - 183

Hegney, D., Price, K., Patterson, E., Martin-McDonald, K. & Rees, S. (2004). Australian consumers' expectations for expanded nursing roles in general practice: Choice not gatekeeping. Australian Family Physician 33 (10): 845-849.

Hegney, D., Price, K., Patterson, E., Martin-McDonald, K. & Rees, S. (2004). Australian consumers' expectations for expanded nursing roles in general practice: Choice not gatekeeping. Australian Family Physician 33 (10): 845-849.

Kralik, D., Koch, T., Price, K. and Howard, N. (2004) Chronic illness self-management: taking action to create order. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 13(2), 259-267. On-line publication http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/toc/jcn/13/2

Price, K (2007) Invited Reviewer of the book Inclusive housing in an ageing society: Innovative approaches. Australasian Journal on Ageing 26 (2), p. 99(1) June 2007

Price, K (2000) ‘Exploring what the doing does: a poststructural analysis of nurses’ subjectivity in relation to pain’, School of Nursing and Midwifery, PhD thesis, University of South Australia, Australian Digital Theses Project, http://www.library.unisa.edu.au/adt-root/public/adt-SUSA-20030501-145110/index.html

Price, K [2007) Invited Reviewer of the book A Guide to Qualitative Field Research 2nd edition. Qualitative Research Journal 6 (2), pp. 209-210(2) 2007

Price, K [2007) Invited Reviewer of the book Successful Qualitative Health Research. A Practical Introduction. Contemporary Nurse 25 (1-2), p. 172(1) May/June 2007

Price K and Cheek J (1996) Pain as a discursive construction Social Sciences in Health: The International Journal of Research and Practice 2(4), 211 – 217, 1996

Price K and Cheek J (1996) Exploring the nursing role in pain management from a post-structuralist perspective Journal of Advanced Nursing 24, 899 – 904, 1996

Price K (1996) Nursing, pain and pain management Nursing Inquiry 4, 72 – 73, 1996

Hawkins R and Price K (1993) The effects of an education video on patients’ requests for postoperative pain relief The Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing 10(4), 32 – 40, 1993

I am able to provide media comment in the following areas of expertise:

Discipline: Nursing

• Quality Use of Medicines