The Blackwood Group
Dr Bronagh Blackwood is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. She is the Vice President of the European federation of Critical Care Nursing associations and an Advisor on critical care to the German Nursing Federation (DGF - Deutsche Gesellshaft fur Fachkrankenpflege und Functionsdienste. Dr Blackwood is an Editor for the Cochrane Anaesthesia Review Group.
Research Interests
I have an established international reputation in critical care research with strong research collaborations both nationally and internationally. My research into complex health care interventions in acute and critical care employs a variety of methods that include systematic reviewing, process evaluation, survey, interview, randomized and quasi-randomized trials.
My major research interest is mechanical ventilation and interventions that reduce its duration in the critically ill. In this field I have completed three Cochrane systematic reviews evaluating the evidence for protocolised weaning and automated systems in adults and children. The review o fprotocolized weaning in critically ill adults (for which I received a Cochrane Fellowship) has contributed to international guidelines for Ventilator Associated Pneumonia and weaning from mechanical ventilation. I am currently undertaking a further three reviews: protocolised weaning in neonates; contextual factors that impact on the duration of ventilation; and prolonged mechanical ventilation. I am a co-investigator on a multi-centre randomised controlled trial of non-invasive ventilation as a weaning strategy and I am leading a study on the developmentof core outcome sets for ventilation studies.
My other research interests involve end of life in intensive care, particularly around the area of moral distress and nurses’ role in the transition from curative to palliative care. I am also investigating a rehabilitation programme for patients who have been in intensive care.