Wilson, Rozanne

Rozanne Wilson, PhD, BA University of British Columbia

Broadly, Dr. Rozanne Wilson’s research is focused on the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative solutions to improve social participation in frail elderly adults living with a chronic condition.  Specifically, in LTRC, interpersonal communication is crucial to residents’ (and caregivers’) quality of life. However, chronic conditions common in LTRC (dementia; aphasia) create communication challenges. Moreover, promoting interpersonal communication is essential to person-centred care. Dr. Wilson’s early research projects focused on identifying effective communication strategies that support resident-caregiver communication during daily activities. These projects were completed as part of her doctoral training at the University of Toronto in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology. These findings were then used to inform the development, implementation and evaluation of a person-centred dementia care communication training intervention during her postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of British Columbia in the School of Audiology and Speech Sciences. From this experience, Dr. Wilson gained insight into key research gaps in LTRC. Firstly, there is a need for innovative technologies to support communication in LTRC. Secondly, there is a need for valid patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that assess quality of life of residents’ in LTRC. Thus, Dr. Wilson’s current research interests have evolved to examine the feasibility of using mobile technology to support communication in LTRC. Additionally, she sought out training in patient-reported outcomes research in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Washington. The training that Dr. Wilson is currently engaged in will provide the knowledge and skills to develop, implement and evaluate PROM instruments that effectively assess residents’ health care needs, as well as evaluate patient-centred care interventions.