Psychology Working Group

Dr Rebecca Knibb Associate Professor in Health Psychology, Ashton University; Psychology Working Group Lead

The Psychology Working Group is chaired by Dr Rebecca Knibb, an Associate Professor in Health Psychology, aims to promote the psychological care and wellbeing of patients with allergies and their families. The group has eight further members from research and clinical practice, spanning paediatric and adult allergy. This year the group have been working to promote awareness of the impact of allergy and the effectiveness of psychological interventions. They held a BSACI grand round webinar on the 22nd May with talks from Drs Rebecca Knibb, Chrissie Jones and Mary Halsey covering latest research on psychological support for patients and families and practical strategies for non-Psychologists. The group had great feedback from this session and plan to run another webinar in the next round. The group is currently compiling a set of resources they feel will be helpful for health care professionals when working with patients and families. These will be uploaded to the Psychology working group webpage that is being developed on the BSACI website.

Members of the group have been involved in various research activities to gather data on the unmet need for psychological services and evidence for effective psychological interventions for patients and families. The results of a UK survey and a global survey on unmet need and a systematic review on psychological interventions are expected to be published this year. The Psychology Working Group will be using this information to work with the BSACI Standards of Care Committee regarding the development of best practice guidelines for psychological services for food allergy.

The working group will be doing a meet and greet at the BSACI stand at the conference in Harrogate, alongside other working group and special interest groups. If you would like to hear more about the Psychology Working Group, please come and talk to us. We will be available during the morning coffee break on the Friday of the conference.