Carol’s research interests focus on women’s health broadly and pelvic health more specifically.  Carol’s work tends to consider the perspectives of women and/or health professionals who receive or deliver health focussed interventions for pelvic health. I have led/ been involved in a range of studies in the field of pelvic health e.g. the TOPSY trial, funded by National Institute of Health and Care Research in the UK.  TOPSY focussed on comparing self-management with clinic-based care for women who use a pessary for pelvic organ prolapse;  and a large qualitative study of women’s experiences of the OPAL intervention.  OPAL aimed to understand if biofeedback mediated pelvic floor muscle training was more effective than pelvic floor muscle training alone is improving symptoms of urinary incontinence in women.

Carol also has an interest in research methods.  For example, presenting work about the use of case study design within randomised controlled trials and developing methods to move a study from the feasibility phase to main trial.

Bugge C, Hagen S, Elders A, Mason H, Goodman K, Dembinsky M, Melone L, Best C, Manoukian S, Dwyer L, Khunda A, Graham, M, Agur W, Breeman S, Culverhouse J, Forrest A,  Forrest M, Guererro K, Hemming C, McClurg D, Norrie J, Thakar R, Kearney R. Clinical and cost-effectiveness of pessary self-management versus clinic-based care for pelvic organ prolapse in women: the TOPSY RCT with process evaluation. Health Technol Assess 2024;28(23) https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hta/nwtb5403/#/abstract

Bugge, C., Hay-Smith, J., Hagen, S. Grant, A, Taylor, A, Dean, S. (2024) Pelvic floor muscle training for female urinary incontinence: development of a programme theory from a longitudinal qualitative case study. BMC Women’s Health 24, 478. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-024-03308-4

Bugge C, Strachan H, Pringle S, Hagen S, Cheyne H, Wilson D. Should pregnant women know their individual risk of future pelvic floor dysfunction? A qualitative study. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 2022 Feb 28;22:161. doi: 10.1186/s12884-022-04490-9

Dwyer, L., Bugge, C., Hagen, S. et al. Theoretical and practical development of the TOPSY self-management intervention for women who use a vaginal pessary for pelvic organ prolapse. Trials 23, 742 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-022-06681-3

Hagen S, Elders A, Stratton S, Sergenson N, Bugge C, Dean S, Hay-Smith J, Kilonzo M, Dimitrova M, Abdel-Fattah M, Agur W, Booth J, Glazener C, Guerrero K, McDonald A, Norrie J, Williams L, McClurg D.  Effectiveness of pelvic floor muscle training with and without electromyography biofeedback for female urinary incontinence: the OPAL multicentre randomised controlled trial.  British Medical Journal. 2020;371:m3719

Grant A, Bugge C, Wells M.  Designing process evaluations using case study to explore the context of complex interventions evaluated in trials.  Trials.  2020.  21, 982.