Dr. Jonathan Pool Profile
Dr Jonathan Pool
Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow
“Part of being a music therapist is thinking about the flow in the interaction, the pauses, […] the pace, and tone. And those can be musical elements.”
Dr Jonathan Pool is one of two clinical trial managers in the Homeside research study. His role involves assessing the participants, gathering baseline data and follow data after an intervention has been delivered. The clinical trial managers also ensure consent has been attained from each dyad. Jonathan outlined four key aspects to his role; consistency, attention to detail, confidentiality, and ethical considerations. He also has some additional roles within CIMTR. He is involved with working on strategy, publishing and developing projects and supporting other departments on developing other modules.
Jonathan discussed the process that occurs when collecting the data from participants. All of the assessments are paper and pencil questionnaires and interviews. Now the study has moved online all of these assessments are carried out through a video or phone call. The pre-screening process consists of completing case report forms, serving the purpose of checking participants eligibility. From here the baseline data collection is carried out. Data is collected from both the care giver and care recipient. As explained by Jonathan, “dementia involves a change in neurological processing and it can result in difficulties with self-evaluating and self-awareness.” It is important to maximise the accuracy of data collected. Therefore, asking questions to both members of the dyad is highly valuable. A proxy provides a different perspective. Assessors are able to look at agreement, as well as at answers that differ in their results. When introducing subjective measures of health, bias comes into play. A proxy increases reliability and validity of the data collected.
The data collection examines the dyads’ health, music and reading history, quality of life, health, resource use, relationship quality and cognitive function. I was interested in asking Jonathan how being a music therapist, influenced his role as a clinical trial manager. We discussed the awareness that a music therapist can have of participants needing a break during the data collection. The interpersonal skills of having an ability to listen and observe hold great purpose in these roles. As acknowledged by Jonathan, “the main goal, is to capture the data as accurately as possible.” Being aware of participants needs during the data collection is, therefore, important to ensure the data that are collected are as useful.
Our conversation continued to consider the similarities between being a music therapist, researcher, or any sort of psychological interventionist. Jonathan highlighted that within the role as a music therapist there has to be “an acceptance of knowledge and acceptance of not knowing,” and that part of the process involves it taking time to collect information. He further went onto explain that similarly, “each research project adds something to the data, to the knowledge that is available.” Research is about a contribution to knowledge, and in both roles it is important to maintain a “questioning mind… [and]…not jump to conclusions either as a researcher or as a music therapist.”
Jonathan highlighted some additional smaller projects that exist within his Homeside role. For example, a systematic review of recruitment strategies in research, involving people with dementia and music therapy. This review is seeks to reveal any patterns in recruitment that can be used in future studies, as well as to support the recruitment process internally within the Homeside study. Analysis that occurs from this review could be disseminated and shared within the research community. These reviews can also offer ideas to researchers about the design of their studies.
Jonathan trained as a music therapist at Anglia Ruskin University. After qualifying he worked in an SEN school, before the opportunity of applying for a PhD arose. His PhD was fully-funded through the Vice-Chancellor studentship at ARU and is titled: Brief group music therapy for acquired brain injury: cognition and emotional needs. For this mixed methods study, Jonathan chose to focus on providing a group intervention for community rehabilitation for adults with brain injury and specifically investigating attention and memory function, as well as socio-emotional needs of the client group. Jonathan also works at The Children’s Trust as a music therapist and as part of their research team. He also is senior music therapist at Chroma. As part of the CIMTR research lecture series he recently presented on a project he is currently leading. The project has the goal of Making adaptations to the Music Therapy Assessment Tool for Awareness in Disorders of Consciousness (MATADOC) so that it can be used with children and young people. Assessing the validity, reliability, and clinical utility of this new measure. The new measure is called the Music therapy Sensory Instrument for Cognition, Consciousness and Awareness (MuSICCA). The protocol for its validation study has been published in BMJ Open and is available for free at: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmjopen-2020-039713