-
Abbey Hughes, PhD
- Director, Division of Rehabilitation Psychology and Neuropsychology
- Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Multiple Sclerosis Rehabilitation Research Program
In this section:
Overview | Research Projects | Team | Contact
Overview
Our research program focuses on projects that seek to understand and optimize daily function, quality of life and health equity for individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) and related conditions, as well as their families, caregivers and support networks. Our projects include research on cognitive function (e.g., thinking, memory), emotional function (e.g., mood and stress), health behaviors (e.g., self-management of sleep, fatigue, physical activity) and social determinants of health (e.g., healthcare access, socioeconomic status, employment) that affect quality of life in MS. Our work may also include individuals with other inflammatory conditions that affect the central nervous system, including: clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO), transverse myelitis (TM) and stiff person syndrome (SPS).
Our team is particularly committed to research that:
- Enhances accessibility of assessments and interventions for individuals with MS and related conditions
- Seeks to understand the interaction of an individuals' experience with MS in the context of their social systems (e.g., home, work, relationships)
- Engages historically underserved and underrepresented people in the MS community and other disability communities
We closely collaborate with partners in the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity.
Research Projects
-
Principal Investigator: Jagriti “Jackie” Bhattarai, Ph.D.
Funding sources: This research study is supported by funding from the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions (HCHDS), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Grant No.: U54MD000214
Study No.: IRB00193860Study information: This research aims to help understand how health literacy and quality of patient-provider communication impact patient engagement in health care in African-Americans/blacks and Caucasians/whites with multiple sclerosis (MS). Using a mixed-method research design, we plan to achieve the following goals:
- Determine the main effects of neighborhood and race, and their interaction, on health literacy in African-Americans/blacks and Caucasians/whites with MS.
- Determine the main effect of neighborhood and race, and their interaction, on patient-provider communication among African-Americans/blacks and Caucasians/whites with MS.
- Determine the degree to which health literacy and patient-provider communication mediate the relationships between neighborhood and race and patient engagement in medical care.
We expect the results of this pilot study to inform future grant proposals focusing on the development of empirically supported interventions to enhance patient engagement through greater health literacy and improved patient-provider communication among individuals with MS.
Recruitment and participation information: This study will recruit African-American/black and Caucasian/white individuals with MS. Participation involves completion of an online battery of quantitative assessments on patient engagement in health care, patient-provider communication and health literacy. A subset of participants from the overall sample will also attend a one-hour qualitative in-depth, in-person interview. Those who complete the online battery of quantitative assessments will receive $15 and those who complete the in-person interview will receive a $50 incentive.
For more information about the study, please contact [email protected].
-
We are also work in close collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center (Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery) to support multi-disciplinary clinical care, research and training.
Co-Investigators
Contact
Multiple Sclerosis Rehabilitation Research Program
Attn: Abbey J. Hughes, PhD
Phipps Room 174
600 N. Wolfe St
Baltimore, MD 21287