Undertaking research across regional Victoria during COVID:
Exploring the Incidence and Severity of Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) in Regional Victoria
• Background
– Acute team at Barwon Health believed the GBS incidence was higher than published Australian literature
• Aims:
– To complete an Australian-first comprehensive analysis of the incidence and severity of GBS across geographical areas
– To identify whether the Barwon South West Region has different disease characteristics to the neighboring Grampians Region
• Methods:
– Data collection at hospitals across Barwon South West Region and Grampians Region
Collaboration
Research team:
• Brendan Cutts (Barwon Health)
• Pimsiri Phongpagdi (Barwon Health)
• Dr Alex Siew Kar Chen (Barwon Health)
• Sarah Wheelahan (Ballarat Health Services)
• Cara Patterson (Wimmera Health Care Group)
• Rose Morgan (South West Healthcare)
• Elsa Gales (Epworth Geelong)
Challenges
• Group of novice researchers lead by a novice researcher
– Project evolving over time
– Clinical case load taking precedence for staff
• Ethics:
– Inexperience with Ethics application procedures
– Different processes for Ethics application across the health services
• Pauses due to COVID
– Redeployment
– Increased clinical demand on staff in the project – Pauses in managerial sign-offs
• Data collection
– Using the DMR
– Waiting for access to files
Results so far
Barwon South West Region:
• 92 cases
• Average 390,409 people across 2009-2019 Incidence = 2.14/100,000/year
Grampians Region:
• 30 cases
• Average 234,233 people across 2009-2019 Incidence = 1.16/100,000/year
