College of Healthcare Sciences

Lisa Shaw

Doctor of Philosophy (Health)
lisa.shaw@jcu.edu.au

Stephen Yu

Senior Lecturer, Nursing and Midwifery
stephen.yu@jcu.edu.au

Karen Smith

Lecturer, Nursing and Midwifery
karen.smith6@jcu.edu.au

Chae Rose

Lecturer, Psychology
chae.rose@jcu.edu.au

Helen Petsky

Head, Nursing and Midwifery
helen.petsky@jcu.edu.au

Lucy Bird

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
lucy.bird@jcu.edu.au

Alyssia Merrick

Doctor of Philosophy (Health)
alyssia.merrick@jcu.edu.au

Sandra Dash

Lecturer
sandra.dash@jcu.edu.au

Reimaging Caring

Tanya Park - Nursing & Midwifery

01 Jul 2022 - 31 Jul 2024

Caring in nursing. Caring is a fundamental concept in healthcare and thus deeply ingrained in the thoughts and actions of nurses. However, caring within modern health systems is fraught with challenges. The complex clinical environment is fast paced and demanding, and caregivers must balance completing tasks amidst time pressures and heavy workloads while attempting to keep up with practice changes such as new skills, treatments, and technologies. This project looks at the complexity of nursing care for people with both mental and terminal illness and what innovative care models could be developed. The project aim is to create a collective narrative of care and caring. This objective will include a variety of activities that culminate in a collective narrative - a co-developed story of care and caring.

The COACT Project: A Buddy Program of Community Outreach, Adaptation, Connection and Together for CALD Youth

Wendy Li - Psychology

01 Jul 2024 - 30 Jun 2027

The COACT (Community Outreach, Adaptation, Connection and Together) project aims to support CALD youth (12-25 years) to integrate into multicultural Townsville through an innovative two-year CO-ACTion buddy program. Buddies, matched based on the duration of living in Australia (less vs more than 5 years) with 100 CALD youth in each group, will participate in: 1) an 8-week mental wellbeing and resilience program (first year); 2) monthly CALD community activities (first and second years); and 3) outreach to connect with broader communities (second year). This project will support the participants to achieve successful adaptation through community outreach, connection and growing together.

Am I Talking to a Real Person? Experimental Investigations into Human Perceptions of Therapeutic Chatbots

Klaire Somoray - Psychology

Therapeutic chatbots could enhance the accessibility of psychological treatments, reducing wait times and costs; yet questions remain about user acceptance. Millet et al. (2023) highlight biases against AI-generated art, suggesting a similar bias may exist for perceptions of therapeutic chatbots. This program of experimental research will investigate whether therapeutic communications are perceived as less empathetic when attributed to therapeutic chatbots, as opposed to humans, across three populations: the general community; therapists/counsellors; and mental health app users. This research will inform future integration of chatbots into digital interventions, including their suitability across different contexts, and highlight targets for improved user experience.

Digital Learning Initiative: Transforming the 4th Year Mini-Conference Experience in Psychology

Klaire Somoray - Psychology

A Contemporary Approach to Research and Statistics in Psychology

Klaire Somoray - Psychology

Developing a psychology resource library (SoLT Grant)

Klaire Somoray - Psychology

While essential to students’ academic and professional careers, many students find learning statistics difficult. Often, students have negative attitudes toward statistics, which impacts engagement and, subsequently, performance and attrition. Recent SoTL research on the design of engaging and effective virtual statistics learning activities found that students want flexible, interactive, and accessible tools, rather than printed textbooks, to practice and advance their data analysis skills. Therefore, as a team of psychology educators, we are leveraging contemporary, digital technologies to create a library of interactive resources available to all Psychology students and staff. Specifically, we are developing a suite of individual resources which, together, create an online reference library. Additionally, we are undertaking a pilot evaluation of undergraduate and postgraduate psychology students’ and College of Healthcare Sciences educators’ experiences and opinions of the library in order to ensure the library is both effective and engaging. Our student-centred approach to this resource library has been chosen to engage students in their own learning and will accommodate student preferences in the post-pandemic higher education sector. Critical to advancing JCU’s efforts for transformative education, this work has the potential to significantly decrease anxiety and increase student retention and success.

DeStress for Success adaptation for Indigenous adolescent Queenslanders

Zoltan Sarnyai - Psychology

25 Nov 2024 - 20 Dec 2024

DeStress for Sucess is an evidence-based, 5x40 minute, neuropsychological school-based program designed to teach young people how to recognise and respond to stress in themselves and others. The program was developed and evaluated in the Canadian context for use with mainstream middle school students and severely disadvantaged young males. In addition to qualitative data, the evaluations collected psychometric (e.g. symptoms of depression), and biological data (e.g. cortisol). This project seeks to adapt the resources to the Queensland context with and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (henceforth, respectfully, Indigenous) young people, and to conduct a similar evaluation. Aims: 1) Adapt the program resources (PowerPoint slides, scripts and activities) for young Indigenous people and trial implementation with Indigenous secondary students at 2-3 north Queensland schools. 2) Evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and accessibility of the adapted program and its cultural appropriateness. 3) Measure program effect pre-post implementation using cortisol (salivary, hair, fingernail, wearable biometric monitoring) and psychometric tools. 4) Inform a controlled or quasi-experimental trial at multiple sites. Initial consultations have been conducted with school leaders and they await presentation of the resources to finalise an agreement to progress. An ethics application for both the adaptation and delivery of the program will be submitted to the JCU HREC. Consultations with community and other stakeholders will follow. Participation in the project is anticipated to be very low risk, with informed consent and measures taken to avoid coercion. Individual participants will have access to their own data.

Exploring Parental Experiences Navigating Autism Diagnostic Services in Regional North Queensland.

Carol Flavell - Physiotherapy

This research examined the lived experience of parents navigating the autism diagnostic process for their child in regional North Queensland. The study adopted an interpretative phenomenological analysis research methodology.

The Social Work Journey: Supporting Families and/or Caregivers Through Anticipatory Grief in Voluntary Assisted Dying

Carol Flavell - Physiotherapy

This survey based study aims to describe the social work experience in supporting family members/caregivers through anticipatory grief while their loved one’s access voluntary assisted dying.

An Exploratory Study: The Presence of Imposter Syndrome in New Graduate Allied Health Professionals and its Relationship to Location of Practice

Carol Flavell - Physiotherapy

This research explores the presence of imposter syndrome in new graduate allied health professionals. Additionally, it examines whether there is a relationship between the rates of imposter syndrome and where an allied health professional works geographically. Findings may help to establish a foundational research focus on imposter syndrome in new allied health professionals.