Coming Together: Formation of the Asian Resilience Enhancement for Adolescents/Young Adults (AREA) Cooperative Group

Monday, 18 November 2019: 1:15 PM

Li-Min Wu, PhD, RN
School of Nursing, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Qian Liu, MSN, RN
Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Heeyeon Son, MSN
School of Nursing, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Kiyoko Kamibeppu, PhD
Department of Family Nursing, Division of Health Sciences and Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Chin-Mi Chen, PhD, RN
Department of Nursing, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City, Taiwan
Sungsil Hong, PhD, RN
Department of Nursing, Kangwong National University, Samcheok-si, Korea, Republic of (South)
Michin Hong, PhD
School of Social Work, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Yvonne Yueh-Feng Lu, PhD, RN, FGSA
Department of Science of Nursing Care, Indiana University School of Nursing, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Celeste Phillips, PhD, RN
School of Nursing, Indiana University, Indianapolis,, IN, USA
Joan E. Haase, PhD, RN, FAAN
Science of Clinical Care Department, School of Nursing, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA

The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of the AREA Cooperative Group. Our group was formed in May 2018, when a critical mass of researchers from three Asian countries (i.e. China, Korea, and Taiwan) were studying resilience in adolescents and young adults with cancer using the Resilience in Illness Model (RIM) to guide their research. The RIM is a well-confirmed model developed by Dr. Joan Haase through a series of qualitative and quantitative studies (Haase, 1987; Haase, Britt, Coward, Leidy, & Penn, 1992; Haase, Heiney, Ruccione, & Stutzer, 1999; Haase & Phillips, 2004; Haase et al., 2014; Haase et al., 2016; Docherty et al., 2013; Robb et al., 2014). RIM was adapted as the guiding framework for the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) Nursing Discipline Committee. COG is the primary cooperative group; they are conducting research on cancer in > 80% of children with cancer in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Europe (Kelly et al., 2014). Through COG, the adapted RIM is used to guide research and clinical practice in North America and parts of Europe.

In this presentation we discuss how our group began—the “glue” which binds us together to accomplish the work, including developing our vision, mission, goals, organizational structure and feasibility of our work. To begin, several members of our current Executive Committee convened a Zoom internet meeting to discuss working together on common projects and formed the AREA Cooperative Group. Additional researchers from Japan were subsequently added. The organizational structure of the AREA Cooperative Group is comprised of an Executive Committee, including 11 interdisciplinary healthcare clinicians and scientists from each country and the United States, and country teams of researchers and clinicians located in hospital and university settings.

Our vision is to foster resilience in all children with chronic illness worldwide, and our first mission is to improve resilience in adolescents/young adults (AYA) with cancer in Asia. Our two-year goals are to foster resilience in AYA with cancer across the four Asian countries. In this symposium we describe our process for identifying translated versions and, when necessary, conducting forward/back translation of any RIM measures not already translated into Chinese Mandarin, Korean, and Taiwanese Mandarin. We also will describe ways we are connecting with faculty and clinicians at universities and hospitals in China, Korea and Taiwan to join with us to evaluate the RIM measures for validity, reliability and cultural sensitivity in each country. We are beginning this same work in Japan, with a June, 2018 target date for completion. In our third abstract, we further discuss insights gained from evaluating the measurement and structural equation model in and across countries with AYA with cancer.

Our work to date is feasible because of our common research interests, use of English as a common language, availability of time and resources to communicate in real time to discuss our work, resources for developing a common RedCap database that can manage internet input of data across around the world, and having university and hospital support for recruiting AYA and parents, collecting and managing data and funding the efforts.

See more of: Asian Resilience Enhancement for Adolescents/Young Adults With Cancer (AREA-CA) Cooperative Group: Aims, Processes, Outcomes
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