Opportunities and Challenges of Using N-of-1 Methods to Improve Health Outcomes: A Psychologist’s Perspective

Event Details

Date:

Thursday, 15 December 2016

Time:

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Room:

219

UQ Location:

Human Movement Studies Building (St Lucia)

URL:

www.hmns.uq.edu.au

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Health behaviours such as physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, dietary intake and medication adherence play a central role in health. Interventions which are effective in promoting healthy behaviours are fundamental for improving health outcomes.

N-of-1 methods involve the repeated measurement of an individual over time to draw robust conclusions about the individual. N-of-1 methods are attracting attention as an innovative set of methods for studying and changing health-related behaviour.

This presentation will provide examples of the application of n-of-1 methods in the field of health psychology and behavioural medicine and will highlight some of the key challenges and opportunities for using n-of-1 methods in future research and practice.

Dr Suzanne McDonald is a Research Associate and Chartered Psychologist at the Institute of Health & Society at Newcastle University, UK. Suzanne’s research interests include the application of n-of-1 methods to study and change health-related behaviour and symptoms (e.g. pain and fatigue), development and optimisation of personalised interventions and the psychological aspects of surgical interventions (bariatric surgery, ear reconstruction and breast reconstruction).