Dr. Valerie Boebel Toly Advances Knowledge About Families Caring for Children Dependent on Lifesaving Technology
Valerie Boebel Toly, PhD, RN, CPNP, FAAN, is an Associate Professor and holds the Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Professorship in Nursing Excellence at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio USA. She has led pioneering research, strategically building the science through a sequential series of studies illuminating the experiences of families caring for children dependent on lifesaving technology (e.g., mechanical ventilation, feeding tubes) at home. Her studies have been funded by the Society of Pediatric Nurses, Sigma Theta Tau International, and the National Institute of Health/National Institute of Nursing Research.
Dr. Toly’s major research contributions include leading descriptive investigations into the impact of caregiving on parents’ mental health, normalization efforts, and family functioning; conducting randomized controlled trials of resourcefulness and mindfulness interventions on parents’ physical/mental health, stress, self-management (e.g., sleep); and highlighting mothers’ experiences throughout the transition trajectory prior to and following their infant’s discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her research has been featured in national and international scoping and integrative reviews, theoretical and empirical work, and professional books by nurses, physicians, other healthcare professionals around the globe and integrated into practice and policy guidelines of national and international pediatric medicine and nursing associations to illuminate the clinical implications of her work for family nursing and interdisciplinary practice.
For more information contact IFNA member, Valerie Toly.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-toly-75315027/
Dr. Marília dos Santos Rua Advances Family Nursing at the University of Aveiro, Portugal
Marília dos Santos Rua, RN, MSc, PhD, is a Coordinator Professor in the School of Health Sciences, University of Aveiro, Portugal where her focus is on maternal and obstetric health. Her research examines family nursing in two areas: family caregivers and transition to parenthood. She teaches maternal health in the undergraduate nursing program and focuses on family health nursing in the Master’s program. She has a particular interest in clinical supervision and in the development of students’ skills in during their clinical internship in nursing and family nursing.
For more information contact IFNA member, Marília Rua.
Dr. Karin Piil Improves Care of Individuals and Families Experiencing Cancer and Hematologic Diagnoses in Denmark
Karin Piil, RN, MhScN, PhD, is a Senior Research and Associate Professor at Copenhagen University Hospital-Rigshospitalet in Denmark. In 2017, she and her colleague, Prof M. Jarden, established CARES which is part of the Models of Cancer Care – Comprehensive Symptom Science Research Program. Across cancer and hematologic diagnoses, this program of research is focused on exploring the disease and symptom experiences of patients through qualitative methods, cross-sectional studies and/or systematic reviews; testing innovative interventions for feasibility and/or effect on physical and psychological symptoms and quality of life; and exploring the patient/family experiences related to the interventions.
Her current research focuses on patients with high-grade glioma who experience a high symptom burden and loss of independence, placing a great responsibility and strain on family caregivers. The study establishes the feasibility of a family and network consultation to identify, address, and manage symptoms and worries in patients with high-grade glioma and their families.
Dr. Piil is also dedicated to increasing the level of clinical practice and science among nurses and allied health professionals. She and her colleague Dr. Anne Brødsgaard offer a doctoral course at the Faculty of Health, Aarhus University: “How to design and conduct your PhD study to be family-focused”. The course aims to introduce, discuss, and apply the family-focused approach, methods, and evaluations in health science research. Also, a learning objective is to understand and apply family-focused values across cultures and in vulnerable families.
For more information, contact IFNA member, Karen Piil.
Dr. Asta Petursdottir Advances Family Nursing Intervention Research Focused on Palliative and End-of-Life Care
Asta B. Petursdottir, PhD, RN, focuses on the nursing of families experiencing specialized palliative and end-of-life care. Her primary interest is in developing and implementing family support interventions for families dealing with advanced cancer who are receiving palliative and end-of-life care. She earned her PhD from the University of Iceland in 2020 and the focus of her doctoral research was “Family Nursing Strengths-Oriented Supportive Interventions in Specialized Palliative Home Care Settings”. She teaches family nursing part-time at the University of Iceland, Faculty of Nursing Health Care Science, in the bachelor of nursing program lead by Dr. Erla Kolbrún Svavarsdottir.
She will be conducting a longitudinal study at Landspitali the National University Hospital of Iceland with Dr. Erla Kolbrún Svavarsdottir and Dr. Anna Olafía Sigurdardottir, both well-known Family Systems Nursing experts in Iceland. The study aims at generating knowledge about cancer patients and their partners’ experience of coping with a serious illness and what effect it may have over time on the family´s daily life and their emotional well-being.
Currently, she is also conducting a bereavement study that aims to better understand the effectiveness of participation in bereavement support groups on mental well-being and responses to loss.
For more information, contact IFNA member, Asta B. Petursdottir.
