Dr Lauren Matheson

PhD, MSc, BSc

Research Fellow

Oxford School of Nursing and Midwifery

Lauren Matheson

Role

Dr Lauren Matheson holds a Research Fellowship within OxInAHR and is part of the Supportive Cancer Care research group at Oxford Brookes University.

Lauren is a qualitative researcher with an academic background in Health Psychology and has over 12 years research experience in cancer survivorship, including research developing self-management interventions to promote behaviour change in cancer survivors, and research exploring the psychosocial impact of cancer on patients and caregivers.

Lauren’s current projects include developing an intervention to support people with breast cancer to recognise and report symptoms of recurrence following treatment completion (Principle Investigator). She is also involved in developing a behaviour change intervention to support patients with head and neck cancer on a patient-initiated follow-up trial, and a mixed-methods project exploring lifestyle behaviours in breast cancer survivors.

Previous qualitative projects include a UK wide evaluation of prostate cancer patients’ experiences and supportive care needs and a study exploring breast cancer survivors’ experiences of a patient-initiated follow-up pathway. Lauren completed her qualitative PhD at Oxford Brookes in 2016, which explored psychosocial adjustment to cancer in young adulthood, focusing on the experiences and needs of patients with testicular cancer or Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Before joining Brookes, Lauren worked on various Health Psychology-related projects, mainly using qualitative methodologies, including the experiences of adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and partners’ experiences of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Lauren has an MSc in Health Psychology from the University of the West of England (UWE), and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Southampton.

Areas of expertise/interest

  • Qualitative methodologies - including Framework and Thematic analysis and Grounded Theory
  • Intervention Development - behavioural change interventions to support self-management in patients with cancer
  • Psychosocial oncology - psychosocial adjustment to cancer during survivorship
  • Patient-initiated follow up pathways
  • Self-management behaviours
  • Lifestyle behaviours after cancer

Teaching and supervision

Modules taught

Lauren has taught on the Doctoral Training Program on topics including

  • Thematic Analysis
  • Qualitative Interviewing
  • Framework analysis
  • Grounded Theory
Name  Thesis Title  Claire Coughian Optimising follow up for patients treated for bowel cancer from seldom heard groups    

 

Research Students

Name Thesis title Completed
Claire Coughlan Optimising follow up for patients treated for bowel cancer from seldom heard groups 2024

Research

Lauren is working on the ‘REPORT Breast study’- a 2-year project as Principle Investigator (OxInAHR research development award) to develop an intervention to improve people with breast cancer’s confidence for recognising and reporting symptoms of recurrence during patient-initiated follow up. She is also working on an NIHR funded study (PETNECK 2- University of Birmingham) developing a behaviour change intervention for head and neck cancer patients on a patient-initiated follow-up trial, and has conducted the qualitative interviews for the feasibility study. Lauren is also involved in a mixed methods project exploring views regarding lifestyle behaviours in people with breast cancer, in order to inform the development of a future intervention.

Previous projects include a mixed methods study evaluating open access follow-up for women with breast cancer (Optimising Supported Early Discharge Follow-up Care for Women with Breast Cancer in the UK); the Life After Prostate Cancer Diagnosis Study (LAPCD) involving interviews with patients and caregivers; a systematic review of lifestyle interventions for patients with gynaecological cancers.

Centres and institutes

Groups

Publications

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Professional information

Memberships of professional bodies

Member of the British Psycho Oncology society (Committee member- open representative, 2023-current)

Member of the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine (UKSBM) (Secretary of the Early Career Researcher UKSBM committee, 2022-current)

International Psycho Oncology Society (research committee member 2019-2022).

Conferences

Lauren regularly attends and presents research findings at conferences including:

  • British Psycho-Oncology society (BPOS)
  • International Psycho-Oncology society (IPOS)