The International Program for Psycho-Social Health Research (IPP-SHR), under the directorship of CQU's Dr Pam McGrath, has forged an exciting collaborative research partnership with a leading Indian cancer hospital, the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC).

This partnership is aimed at facilitating the international sharing of ideas, knowledge and expertise through qualitative research co-operation, with particular focus on the areas of palliative care service delivery and community-based health promotion.

This partnership was consolidated in February 2006, when IPP-SHR’s Program Manager, Hamish Holewa, visited Trivandrum, in the Southern Indian state of Kerala, to meet with Dr Thomas Koilparampil, a leading Indian oncologist, and his colleagues at the RCC.

As a result of this extremely fruitful visit, IPP-SHR and the RCC, with funding provided by the School of Nursing and Health Studies, CQU, are collaborating to complete 2 unique qualitative research projects within the RCC’s catchment area of Trivandrum, India.

The first of these projects is aimed at evaluating the end-of-life care currently provided by both the RCC’s in-patient palliative care department and CarePlus, an innovative and holistic domiciliary service operated out of the RCC.

Ultimately, this project strives to augment the palliative care services already available at the RCC by exploring avenues through which these services can better meet the complex needs of terminally ill patients and their families. The findings of this study can in turn be used as a model of best practice by other palliative care services, both within India, Australia and elsewhere.

The second project being embarked upon seeks to utilize and assess the effectiveness of community-based health promotion techniques as a means of providing citizens with health education, especially in the important area of cancer prevention.

This longitudinal project aims to harness well-established and sustainable community resources and infrastructure – in the form of Community Estate Management Committees that already exist throughout the Kerala region – in achieving this aim.

It is hoped that this project will contribute to the development of more effective, community-driven methods of health promotion that can be adapted from the study’s Indian context to the diverse circumstances of other developing and developed countries.

IPP-SHR is utilizing innovative information technology in order to overcome the considerable logistical challenges that this international research collaboration poses.

This has been especially necessary in facilitating clear communication between the internationally dispersed research team and with regard to promoting timely and reliable information sharing and project management.

Video-conferencing has provided an invaluable medium which has facilitated real-time communication between members of IPP-SHR, located in Brisbane, Australia, and researchers at the RCC, India.

Furthermore, IPP-SHR’s Project Manager, Hamish Holewa, is presently engaged in the development of an interactive supported software program, Quadrant, designed to streamline the management of qualitative research programs and the facilitate the secure storage of project data.

This is proving to be invaluable in co-ordinating and managing information flow between India and Australia.

More information can be found at: www.ipp-shr.cqu.edu.au , in the “Psycho-Social Update” (www.ipp-shr.cqu.edu.au/psysocupd.htm) or by contacting Pam McGrath – pam_mcgrath@bigpond.com or Hamish Holewa - h.holewa@cqu.edu.au .