Introduction

(continued from main page) Indeed, family members share most intimately the experience of living with and caring for persons with life-limiting illness. They are strongly affected – both positively and negatively – by the care that they provide.

The primary goal of Palliative and End-of-Life Care is to improve the quality of life and quality of death of dying people and their families. Our research program is aimed at developing the knowledge needed to enable those family members who wish to provide care to do so without endangering their own health.

Research Objectives

The specific objectives of our New Emerging Team (NET) are to:

• Develop the evidence required to optimize family caregiver experience during caregiving and minimize long-term health problems.
• Inform the development of health services and policies in palliative caregiving.
• Support and train future researchers in palliative/end-of-life caregiving.
• Develop best practices and policies for palliative caregiving research.
• Create a network of interdisciplinary researchers that continues to advance these objectives on an ongoing basis.

Research Population

The research being conducted by our team focuses on family caregivers of people with:

• Cancer
• End-Stage Cardiopulmonary Disease
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Life-limiting Pediatric Disease

Research Plan

Our NET program of research is focused on four main areas:

1. Studies that evaluate social policies related to caregiving in palliative and end-of-life care.

2. Studies that examine how the environment and different care settings (e.g., home, hospital, long-term care facility) influence family caregivers’ experiences.

3. Studies aimed at developing practices to accentuate the positive and reduce the negative aspects of palliative and end-of-life caregiving.

4. Studies that develop and test interventions or programs/services that will help family caregivers in palliative and end-of-life care.

We anticipate that ideas for new research projects will evolve through working together and through feedback from family caregivers themselves. We welcome suggestions that you may have.

Building Research Capacity

Building research capacity is an important component of our NET activities. To meet one of our primary objectives of fostering the development of new researchers in palliative and end-of-life care, we are funding at least five trainees.

At this time, we have funding for Ph.D. students (click here to access Research Opportunities). In addition, we are funding 1 new investigator who will join our team in the third year of our grant and whose focus will be on pediatric palliative caregiving.

We anticipate that additional graduate students and clinician researchers will work with our team through funds obtained by external grants.

The above information is available in a poster format and can be found here.

Information on the researchers can be found here.