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Associate ProfessorHeather Shepherd

Principal Research Fellow - Health Literacy Lab

Faculty of Medicine and Health

Orcid identifier0000-0002-3350-1325 (opens in a new tab)⁠
  • Principal Research Fellow - Health Literacy Lab
    Faculty of Medicine and Health

Research projects & supervision summary

Psycho-oncology

Anxiety and depression are common in those diagnosed with cancer, causing suffering to individuals and their families and decreasing survival. The ADAPT Program, standing for Anxiety and Depression Pathway Program, aims to facilitate the integration of a newly developed clinical pathway for anxiety and depression in cancer patients into routine care, as well as to develop and evaluate implementation strategies to promote the uptake of the pathway in the Australian health care context.Sustainable and effective resources and systems have been developed and evlauted and are currently being implemented in a manner that:
  • empowers patients and family members towards self-care,
  • up-skills oncology health professionals, and
  • allows specialist psychosocial staff to focus on the people who most need their expert input.

The outcome of this program will inform future implementation strategies for a national rollout of the clinical pathway. The ADAPT Program is led by a collaborative investigator team of clinical, academic and consumer experts with additional support from the Joint Community Advisory Group (JCAG) to PoCoG.

This had led to a collaboration with Flinders University - iScreen where we have now incorporated physical symptoms in addition to the ADAPT Clincial Pathway and online portal for patients with cancer, aligning referral and management for phyical symptoms to evidence-based recommendations for care.

Universal/accessible ESAS-R (a symptom screening assesssment tool) and recommended Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) developed in a visual only format to ensure inclusion of patients with lower literacy and/or from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, in PROM initiatives across cancer care.

Shared Decision making / Health literacy

Implementation of ,'Finding your way' a shared decision making model created with mob, for mob. It is a holistic, two-way process where Aboriginal people and their healthcare professionals make decisions together. We are currently adapting a measure of SDM in partnership wth the Agency for Clinical Innovation as part of a larger program of work to support health professionals and services to embrace SDM more widely.

These projects are conducted in collaboration with colleagues in the School of Public Health, NSW Health, and national and international reserach leaders.

SUCCESS: Supporting culturally-diverse adults with CKD to engage in shared decision making successfully

SDM Demonstration Project in collaboration with NSW ACI

The role of Question Builderhttps://www.healthdirect.gov.au/question-builderto support patient engagement in health care consultation (Phd Student Marguerute Tracy)

Parenting Plus "Facilitating Person Centred Antenatal Care: Pilot Testing An Antenatal Health Literacy Education Program For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Women

RESEARCH PROJECTS & ACTIVITIES

  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    An examination of the administration of intravenous fluids to women during labour
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Cancer Diagnostic Pathways – Improving accessibility and efficiency of cancer services for high risk malignancies.
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Co-creation of a fit for purpose Adaptable Aboriginal implementation Framework to Support Shared Decision Making with Aboriginal People
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Evaluating a Paediatric Early Warning Systems (PEWS) for Use in Low Resource Settings (LRS): Design, Implementation and Acceptability
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Factors Influencing the Early Implementation of the Australian Clinical Pathway for the Screening, Assessment and Management of Anxiety and Depression in Adult Cancer Patients (ADAPT CP): Success Factors and Organisational Readiness for Change
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    ICanBlend:Blended Psychological Therapy for the Treatment of Anxiety and Depression in the Context of Cancer
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    More questions than answers - Investigating questions asked by patients and online, real-world question prompt list tools to realise the benefits for patients, health professionals, and healthcare decision making
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Project Title: Empowering Voices: Exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Shared Decision-Making in Healthcare for Culturally Safe and Inclusive Practices
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Supporting Distributed Health Literacy and Family-based decision making in Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer
  • RESEARCH-BASED DEGREE SUPERVISION
    Understanding the impact of age and the role of geriatric assessments in treatment decision-making for older adults with cancer