My goal is to conduct research that will impact health provider long-term intervention planning for people with disabilities and chronic illness, especially developmental disabilities. A key feature of this work in the long term will include an assessment tool for health providers to facilitate identification of personal, social and community factors that are relevant in patient-level intervention planning. This tool will assist health providers in understanding intervention decision making and facilitating intervention planning for young people with disabilities by facilitating identification of interventions that are the best fit for families, taking into consideration self efficacy regarding treatments and experience of stress related to disability. This will enable clinicians to more easily make effective, personalized intervention plans for individuals with disability and their families.
I am specifically interested in exploring challenges to long term intervention planning for children, adolescents and young adults with disabilities or chronic illness. One step in the development of the intervention planning tool will be to identify factors that contribute significantly to intervention planning, such as social and clinical contacts, personal skills and resources impacting self-efficacy regarding intervention implementation, and experience of stress.
This issue is significant because there has been little effort to quantify the factors influencing intervention selection among disability populations. Currently health care providers lack tools to assist with planning for the common social, behavioral, and academic/employment issues that affect successful management of chronic illness and disability. Assisting clinicians in proactively planning for social and personal issues that impact intervention implementation is crucial to the long term successful management of a disability. Barriers in these areas have negative effects on intervention decision making and treatment adherence. Depression and negative social outcomes are common in people with disabilities, and are associated with other negative outcomes.
Timeframe
Begin formal work on this project in September 2011
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