Karen Protopapa
About
My research project
How Individuals Conceptualise Weight Loss Success and the Role of Weight Loss Success Stories in Promoting Help-Seeking BehaviourI plan to use a mixed methods approach to explore the meaning of weight loss success and the role that weight loss stories might play in promoting help seeking behaviour for weight loss treatment.
Supervisors
I plan to use a mixed methods approach to explore the meaning of weight loss success and the role that weight loss stories might play in promoting help seeking behaviour for weight loss treatment.
My qualifications
News
In the media
ResearchResearch interests
I became interested in health psychology in 2005, particularly eating and drinking behaviours. Progressively, my core research interest moved to obesity. My anonymous topic proposal for a national report on bariatric surgery was selected by NCEPOD. The report was published in 2012 and has been used by healthcare professionals when setting up their bariatric surgery and weight management services.
I am also interested in high risk surgical patients. I was the research lead for the national peri-operative care study, the report of which was published by NCEPOD in 2011. This then led me to my first article as first and corresponding author - the Development and Validation of the Surgical Outcome Risk Tool (SORT) in the British Journal of Surgery in 2014. Following that, I designed the SORT app (given to an app developer to build on Android and iOS) and co-designed the web-based tool. This mortality risk tool is being used by healthcare professionals and gives a preoperative risk estimate to facilitate shared decision making and aid capacity planning for ICU/HDU beds.
Research interests
I became interested in health psychology in 2005, particularly eating and drinking behaviours. Progressively, my core research interest moved to obesity. My anonymous topic proposal for a national report on bariatric surgery was selected by NCEPOD. The report was published in 2012 and has been used by healthcare professionals when setting up their bariatric surgery and weight management services.
I am also interested in high risk surgical patients. I was the research lead for the national peri-operative care study, the report of which was published by NCEPOD in 2011. This then led me to my first article as first and corresponding author - the Development and Validation of the Surgical Outcome Risk Tool (SORT) in the British Journal of Surgery in 2014. Following that, I designed the SORT app (given to an app developer to build on Android and iOS) and co-designed the web-based tool. This mortality risk tool is being used by healthcare professionals and gives a preoperative risk estimate to facilitate shared decision making and aid capacity planning for ICU/HDU beds.
Teaching
Teaching Fellow - I completed all four modules of the Graduate Teaching and Learning Certificate in 2024.
I gave four lectures as a guest lecturer on the Health Psychology MSc programme at Surrey.