Reducing psychosocial impacts on people affected by chronic disease

Centre members have an international reputation in assessing the psychosocial impact of disease, developing clinical practice guidelines and training of clinicians to facilitate their adoption, developing and evaluating interventions to minimise disease impact, and translating research findings into routine care, particularly in relation to cancer. However, relatively little is known about the onset, duration, frequency and severity of psychosocial morbidity associated with other chronic diseases over time. Centre members are presently undertaking Australia's first large-scale longitudinal studies tracking the psychosocial wellbeing of adult cancer survivors and their partners/caregivers well into the "survivorship" stage, as well as studies of adolescent cancer survivors and their parents, and terminally ill cancer patients.