Youth with Chronic Medical Conditions: Family Processes\, Risk \, and Resilience
Due to significant medical advance s\, survival rates for youth with chronic medical conditions such as cancer \, inflammatory bowel disease\, and congenital heart defects have increased dramatically. However\, the sequelae of pediatric illness–including psycho logical distress and chronic pain–continue to impact youth and families thr ough adolescence and into adulthood. These sequelae are often undiagnosed a nd untreated\, placing a significant burden on youth\, parents\, and the he althcare system. This talk will present a program of research dedicated to preventing the development of distress and chronic pain in youth with chron ic medical conditions by bolstering resilience in families. This research m akes use of longitudinal designs\, multi-method assessments\, as well as la rge and nationally representative healthcare datasets. Three avenues of res earch will be discussed: (1) characterizing family processes after diagnosi s of a pediatric illness\, (2) identifying family processes that predict ri sk for child distress and pain\, and (3) developing and testing family-base d interventions that can be delivered remotely via eHealth platforms after the diagnosis of a pediatric illness.
Dr. Lexa Murphy is a postdoctoral research fello
w at Seattle Children’s Hospital under the mentorship of Dr. Tonya Palermo.
She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Vanderbilt University a
nd completed her predoctoral internship training in child psychology at Uni
versity of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital. Her research interests i
nclude family adjustment after a pediatric medical diagnosis\, psychosocial
predictors of pain in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease\, and developme
nt and testing of interventions for youth with chronic pain.