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Our
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Grants and Research Office
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Endowed Chairs at the School of Nursing
Laurel Northouse, PhD, RN, FAAN
Mary Lou Willard French Professor of Nursing
Dr. Laurel Northouse holds an endowed chair, the Mary Lou French
Professorship, at the School of Nursing. She has developed an
internationally-recognized program of research on the psychosocial
effects of on the family. Dr. Northouse has conducted a number
of longitudinal studies with cancer patients and thieir family
members that have examined changes they experience in their levels
of support, hope, uncertainty, and adjustment from the time of
diagnosis to one year post-diagnosis. As a part of this work,
she has developed a model that helps to explain which cancer patients
and their family members are at risk of developing adjustment
problems to cancer and which families are in need of early intervention
by health professionals.
Dr. Northouse is completing an intervention study with women
with recurrent breast cancer and their family members. Participants
in the study are randomized to receive either standard care or
standard care plus the FOCUS Program. The FOCUS Program is a family-based
program of care that covers five content areas: Family involvement,
Optimistic outlook, Coping effectiveness, Uncertainty reduction,
and Symptom management. Dr. Northouse is currently tailoring the
FOCUS Program to address the quality of life issues faced by men
with prostate cancer and their family caregivers and will test
the effectiveness of the program in maintaining their quality
of life in a future clinical trial.
Page Last Modified: Wednesday, 16-Aug-2006 11:02:39 EDT
© 2003
University of Michigan School of Nursing
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