Course How to Design, Conduct and Evaluate your PhD study to be Family-focused - Theory-driven Strategies and Clinical Excellence in Interprofessional Healthcare

The course P301/05: How to Design, Conduct and Evaluate your PhD study to be Family-focused - Theory-driven Strategies and Clinical Excellence in Interprofessional Healthcare is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, 2025.

Criteria for participation:  University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Requirements for participation: PhD students

Ph.D. students planning to conduct family-focused projects within health science

Aim: The aim is to introduce, discuss and apply family-focused approaches, methods, and evaluations in health science research

Learning outcomes: 

1. Understand the basic characteristics of a theory-driven family-focused research approach and dialogue based on the Calgary family assessment and intervention models.
2. Gained individual and collective experiences and reflections of how to transform the theory and models into excellence in healthcare.
3. Understand, discuss and argue for the central methodological considerations.
4. Identify appropriate family-focused qualitative and quantitative data sources for research. 
5. Describe and argue for the choice of patient-reported outcome and caregiver-reported outcome.
6. Identify strengths and limitations of a family-focused approach
7. Understand and apply family-focused values across cultures and in vulnerable families
8. Present the family-focused PhD study in a concise and structured format with attention to an interprofessional excellence in clinical healthcare.

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 61 hours

Preparation and homework

• Each student submits a 1-page abstract of their Ph.D. study in the template (deadline: May 1st, 2025 to Karin.Piil@regionh.dk)
• During the course the student will further develop, design and present own family-focused PhD study
• Each student is expected to do non-scheduled course activities for approximately 40 hours for the course for 40 hours (abstract , reading, qualifying own project).

Literature:

May 12th:
Book:

Shajani Z & Snell D, 2023. Wright & Leahey’s Nurses and Families – A guide to family assessment and intervention. 8th edition. F.A. DAVIS. Philadelphia:

• Chapter 1 Family Assessment and intervention: An overview, p. 1-19
• Chapter 2 Theoretical Foundations of the Calgary family Assessment and Intervention Models, p.21-50
• Chapter 3 The Calgary Assessment Model, p.51-138
• Chapter 4 The Calgary Family Intervention Model, p. 139-166
• Chapter 7 How to Conduct Family Interviews, p.211-240
• Chapter 9 How to Do a 15-Minute (or shorter) Family Interview, p.255-272

May 13th :

• Petursdottir AB, Svavarsdottir EK. The effectiveness of a strengths-oriented therapeutic conversation intervention on perceived support, well-being and burden among family caregivers in palliative home-care. J Adv Nurs. 2019 Nov;75(11):3018-3031. doi: 10.1111/jan.14089.
• Taylor B, de Vocht H. Interviewing separately or as couples? Considerations of authenticity of method. Qual Health Res. 2011 Nov;21(11):1576-87. doi: 10.1177/1049732311415288. Epub 2011 Jul 7. PMID: 21737568.
• Langer & Brown & Syrjala 2009. Intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of

protective buffering among cancer patients and caregivers. Cancer, 115(18 suppl), 4311-4325.

• Staniszewska S et al. GRIPP2 reporting checklists: tools to improve reporting of patient and public involvement in research. BMJ 2017;358:j3453 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j3453.
• Yang et al. Patient-reported outcome use in oncology: a systematic review of the impact on patient-clinician communication. Support Care Cancer (2018) 26:41–60. DOI 10.1007/s00520-017-3865-7.
• Kingsley & Patel. Patient-reported outcome measures and patient-reported experience measures. BJA Education, Volume 17, Number 4, 2017.
• Piccinin C, et al. Recommendations on the use of item libraries for patient-reported outcome measurement in oncology trials: findings from an international, multidisciplinary working group. Lancet Oncol. 2023 Feb;24(2):e86-e95. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(22)00654-4. PMID: 36725153.
• Manuel Zimansky et al. Effects of Implementing a Brief Family Nursing Intervention With hospitalized Oncology Patients and Their Families in Germany: A Quasi-Experimental Study. Journal of Family Nursing 2020, Vol. 26(4) 346–357.

May 14th:

• Shamali M, Østergaard B, Konradsen H. Living with heart failure: perspectives of ethnic minority families. Open Heart 2020;7:e001289. doi:10.1136/ openhrt-2020-001289.
• Rønne PF et al. Barrieres and facilitattors influencing nurses’ cojnfidence in managing family nursing conversations in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain: A longitudinal qualitative study. J. Fam. Nurs. 2023; 1-13.doi: 10.1177/10748407221145963.

Additional literature will be referred to and suggested during the course.

Instructors: Karin Piil and Anne Brødsgaard, Dorthe Nielsen, Pernille Friis Rønne and Kathrine Pii Hofmann

Venue: Online Zoom

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 12 May 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 13 May 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 14 May 2025 09:00 - 16:00