Psychosocial Intervention in the Context of Psychoneuroimmunology

Tuesday, 10 June 2008 - 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
presented by Elisabeth Andritsch PhD, Verena Ladinek PhD, Thomas Bauernhofer MD and Stefanie Stanzer DMSc

Presented in English only / Solo en Inglés

Target Audience:

Clinical psychologists, medical doctors, nurses, social workers, research assistants, psychology and medical students and any other health care professional who are interested in research and clinical practice of psychoneuroimmunology.


Workshop Objectives:

• The attendees will be able to understand the concept of psychoneuroimmunology

• The attendees will become familiar with the specific psychosocial educational intervention program “Learning to live with cancer”

• The attendees will be informed about basic methods to evaluate immunologic findings

• The attendees will learn how to establish a study in this field

• The attendees will be encouraged to integrate the concept of psychoneuroimmunology into their work with cancer patients and to deal with challenges as well as with limitations

Workshop Description:

In this workshop leaded by a multi-professional team the participants will be informed about the concept of psycho-neuro-immunology on the basis of different scientific models. The present state of the research will be shortly presented. In addition, the participants will have the opportunity to learn about the specific psychosocial intervention program “Learning to live with cancer” (developed by Gertrud Grahn, Sweden and adapted by this Austrian working group). In this structured educational program, which include 8 weekly meetings the following topics are presented: health education, stress management, problem-solving and coping mechanisms, relaxation techniques, cooking course, social work and complementary medicine. The effects of this psychosocial intervention on psychological, immunological and hormonal parameters have been evaluated in our current study with breast cancer patients. The psychological parameters measured in our study among others are depression, sense of coherence, anxiety, quality of life, intrusion and avoidance.

The experience and the benefits of this program and also the preliminary data of this ongoing study will be shared with the participants. The participants will also learn basics to establish a study in the field of psycho-neuro-immunology. In this full day-workshop the participants will have the opportunity to experience on their own the effect of acute stressors and will practice some parts of the intervention program.