Center for Psycho-oncology and Palliative Care Research
Description of Research Program
The Center for Psycho-oncology and Palliative Care Research's mission is to conduct research to improve the quality of lives and care received by advanced cancer patients. We also consider family members as integral participants in the provision and outcomes of cancer care. As a general theme, we apply the methods of clinical epidemiology and perspectives of social psychology to advance understanding of the dynamics between patients, their family members, oncologists and others involved in patient care.
Research, Teaching, and Clinical Contributions
The primary focus of our research has been to advance understanding of the interpersonal and intrapersonal factors that influence the quality of life of individuals confronting life-threatening illness and death. Our work has concentrated on an examination of psychosocial determinants of terminally ill patient's understanding of illness, their surviving family member's reactions to their death, and the way interpersonal dynamics influence medical decision-making and care and related end-of-life (EOL) outcomes. Determinants examined include: Physician-patient communication, ethnic and spiritual influences on care, and how care, preparation for, and the quality of a patient's death affect surviving family members' bereavement adjustment.
We lead the research effort justifying the inclusion of Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) as a new diagnostic entity for included in the DSM-V and ICD-11. In a series of studies stemming from an NIMH R01 field trial of consensus criteria for this disorder, we have conducted the foundational psychiatric epidemiologic investigations to define Prolonged Grief Disorder. Our scales to assess pathological grief (termed "complicated" and "traumatic" before we settled on "prolonged") have been described in review articles as the standard grief measures advocated for the field. Our grief scales have been translated into over 15 foreign languages, used for a wide variety of traumatic (e.g., 9/11, London bombings, Hurricane Katrina; Chinese earthquake 2008) and non-traumatic (terminally ill patients, caregiving parents, spouses, offspring) losses, cited over 180 times, and requested for use by clinicians and researchers nearly daily for the past 14 years. Our JAMA 2007 publication on the stage theory of grief received much attention and had the distinction of being identified as "Y" (yearning) in Time Magazine's alphabet of the most notable health reports published in 2007. This work and work on grief has been featured on NPR, Slate, and in the New York Times.
Dr. Prigerson directs the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research seminar series and teaches seminars to the Brigham and Women's Hospital psychiatry residents on psychiatric epidemiology, psycho-oncology and grief, specifically. She also hosts many visiting and local scholars in research collaborations. Her goals are to continue to foster the development of promising junior investigators and to advance the evidence base pointing the way toward best practices in the care provided to advanced cancer patients and their family members who survive them.
Resources
The center provides several resources to promote psycho-oncologic and palliative care research. These resources include access to:
- Psychometrically sound assessment tools, including availability of online measures for purchase (e.g., Inventory of Complicated Grief; Prolonged Grief Disorders Assessment: PG-13)
- Access to large psycho-oncology and palliative care databases, including NIH-sponsored multi-site, longitudinal studies such as the Coping with Cancer study data
- Online bereavement interventions
- Links to relevant Web sites
- Online links to ongoing research projects and recruiters
- Research mentorship
For more information, please contact us at PsychooncResearch@partners.org.
