Supportive Care - Supportive Care Research

The main areas of research for the Department of Supportive Care Research Program are Palliative Care, Psychosocial Oncology, and Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship

Palliative Care

Interdisciplinary care with the goal of improving quality of life (QOL) throughout the course of a life-threatening illness
research focus – developing team-based interventions to improve QOL in advanced cancer and improving equitable access to palliative care.

Psychosocial Oncology

Psychological, social, behavioural, and ethical aspects of cancer research focus on longitudinal evaluation of the psychological and social burden of disease and the development of novel interventions to relieve distress throughout the course of illness.

Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship

About living, surviving and having the best quality of life possible research focus – late and long-term effects of cancer and its treatment including complex interventions to improve function, cognition, and QOL.

Research Areas

Current Program Initiatives:

Development and testing of complex interventions:

Emotion and Symptom-Focused Engagement (EASE)
Early Palliative Care (EPC);
Symptom Screening and Targeted Early Palliative Care (STEP)
Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM) and iCALM (online CALM)
Cancer Rehabilitation and Exercise Program (CaRE) – 8-week structured cancer rehab program; CaRE@Home; CaRE-AC (advanced cancer)
Psilocybin-assisted Existential, Attachment and RelationaL (PEARL) Therapy
Distress Screening (DART, Your Symptoms Matter, virtual symptom screening)
Neurocognitive outcomes in childhood cancer survivors
Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) – longitudinal study of predictors of requests
Impact of COVID-19 on palliative care and bereavement

Future Program Initiatives:

Virtual health is a rapidly growing area in which we are actively developing research (i.e., CaRE@Home; iCALM; eSTEP)
Innovative interventions: Psychedelic assisted psychotherapy (PEARL), Virtual reality, wearables
Research on Medical Assistance in Dying
Research about effects of COVID-19 on supportive care
Inequities in supportive care – both in Canada and globally
Multi-centre studies – to improve recruitment, generalizability
Other areas: side effects of immunotherapy; research involving cannabis; research involving biomarkers