About Us
The Psychosocial Cancer Research for Kids (CARE4Kids) lab at the University of Calgary is focused on the biopsychosocial outcomes for children and adolescents/young adults (AYAs) who have been diagnosed with cancer or sickle cell disease and their families. Outcomes of interest include: quality of life, social competence, pain, and sleep. Led by Dr. Fiona Schulte as part of the Division of Psychosocial Oncology in the Department of Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine, our research aims to improve the quality of life of these populations.
Our research - Highlights
Pain studies
26% of survivors had chronic pain
Those with chronic pain had worse mental health
Survivor that had pain AND had parents with pain reported more posttraumatic and depressive symptoms
mHealth
Held a workshop to learn more about the needs of survivors and caregivers
Designing and testing the feasibility of a virtual intervention platform
Sleep studies
Greater time off treatment and younger age at diagnosis were related to worse sleep
No differences between survivors, survivor's siblings, and healthy children for sleep!
Social adjustment studies
Survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukemia had worse social functioning compared to other children, but not survivor siblings