PIPages
Labs

Christina Amaro

Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Psychology·Early-career

When a child has cancer, their teenage brothers and sisters often struggle with distress and unmet needs, yet most get no support. They are rarely at the hospital, staff are stretched thin, billing is hard, and few proven sibling programs exist.

Fields

Psychology

Medicine & Clinical Research

Public Health & Epidemiology

Topics

pediatric cancer

childhood cancer

siblings

Grants
1 known grant, through Jul 2030

What they work on

  1. Adapt an existing digital single-session intervention for adolescent siblings of children with cancer using solution-focused brief therapy, refined through Think Aloud sessions with 12 siblings.
  2. Evaluate feasibility, acceptability, engagement and preliminary effects on distress of the Sibling SSI versus a waitlist control in a pilot trial of 50 adolescent siblings.
  3. Identify barriers and facilitators to implementing the Sibling SSI through interviews with siblings, parents, hospital staff and community organizations, guided by the RE-AIM framework.

More about the research

Digital single-session interventions (SSIs), short self-guided online programs completed in one sitting, reduce distress in teens generally and could reach siblings where traditional care cannot.

Why it matters

Adolescent siblings of children with cancer could gain access to a free-standing, scalable digital tool that may reduce their psychological distress without requiring hospital visits or specialist staff. Findings could help hospitals and community groups deliver family-centered care in childhood cancer.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Developing a Single-Session Intervention to Support Adolescent Siblings of Children with Cancer

NIH · Aug 2025 – Jul 2030

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The school

Rutgers University-New Brunswick: 57 labs on PI Pages, $837M a year on research, 713 research doctorates a year.

More about Rutgers University-New Brunswick

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