Research

The School of Nursing strives to achieve and sustain world-class research in nursing and health. Supported by the University’s policy to promote innovative, high-impact and multidisciplinary research and fostered by the Faculty’s outstanding research achievements, the School has made important advances in the following key areas:

Innovations for smoking cessation and tobacco control,
maternal and child health,
quality of life research
palliative care and end-of-life decision making
symptom management for oncology patients,
brain health promotion, dementia management and caregiving
Disease management models for prevalent cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases
Healthy aging

Our research teams have expertise in a variety of advanced research methodology, including epidemiological studies, moderation and mediation analysis, complex intervention development and evaluation, qualitative inquiry in humanistic science, mixed-method research design, cost-effectiveness analysis, psychometric research, systematic review and network meta-analysis. We also have international collaborative links as well as partnership with the local health and social care stakeholders to optimize research utilization through implementation science in health practice advancement and policy-making

Ageing and Chronic Diseases

Cancer and Palliative Care

Our thematic research group focuses on a wide variety of empirical interdisciplinary and collaborative research, which contributes toward enhancing the experience and outcomes of patients living with cancer.

Our researchers run major programmes to transform knowledge on symptom assessment, biological mechanisms for symptom management, psychosocial needs of patients with cancer and their family caregivers, interventions related to supportive care, ethical and legal issues in the practice of advance directives, living wills and end-of-life decisions, as well as promoting the palliative care development that includes healthcare services, provision of clinical care, education and research collaboration across the globe to enhance access to quality hospice and palliative care.

Our long-term vision is to develop new knowledge and inform clinical practice to improve the quality and effectiveness of Cancer and Palliative Care delivered by nurses and other healthcare professionals.

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Gerontology and Long-term Care

This thematic research group focuses on the several global research priorities in tackling the impact of rapid population aging. First, in this Decade of Healthy Aging, we have a solid research track record in promoting the intrinsic capacity of older adults through risk factor modification including sarcopenia, frailty, cognitive decline and social loneliness. Second, by integrating the clinical, tele-medicine and behavioral science, this group has developed various innovative practices to enhance the health outcomes and self-care of persons with prevalent cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases, particularly Parkinson’s disease, stroke, coronary heart disease and heart failure. Third, cognitive health is also a key research priority of the group, and we have extensively used the strength-based concept to develop lifestyle interventions, caregiver empowerment and dyadic care model to enhance dementia prevention and management in a family context. With the use of Big Data, we also aim to identify evidence and devise evidence-based clinical management for people living with dementia, thus optimizing care and reducing healthcare burden. Last but not the least, our research extends to building the capacity of informal care, including family caregivers and volunteers to buffer the overstretched aged care service.

Researcher(s):

Primary Care and Behavioural Health

Community and Mental Health Nursing

We focus on developing effective strategies that benefit our communities in mental well-being. We have delved into community projects that cover the areas of child and adolescent health, sexual and reproductive health in young adults, maternal health, and women’s health. We have conducted multi-centred randomised controlled trials, population-based epidemiological studies, community-based health promotion projects, neurological imaging studies, and other novel designed studies. Our work has influenced policies and clinical recommendations of both national and international agencies in areas such as breastfeeding and scoliosis screening.

Researcher(s):

Smoking Cessation and Tobacco Control

We are one of the leading research teams internationally on smoking cessation and tobacco control policy. Our smoking cessation research focuses on finding cost-effective, scalable and sustainable interventions for preventing smoking and promoting smoking cessation in adults and adolescents leveraging advancement of technologies and trial methodology. Tobacco endgame is our focus on policy research. Our research findings have been published in top international journals with high impacts on applications locally and internationally and widely used to advocate for smoke-free legislation in Hong Kong, and they serve as successful examples of tobacco control measures for mainland China and elsewhere.

For further information about our research deliverables and impact, please visit our team's website at https://sctc.nursing.hku.hk/

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