Emeritus Professor Bettina Meiser
With the input of many colleagues, Professor Meiser has built a nationally and internationally recognised research program that assesses the psychosocial impact of genetic counselling and testing for hereditary disease; psychological adjustment of individuals at risk for hereditary disease; and the design and evaluation of interventions in the cancer genetic counselling setting, in particular decision aids as an innovative means of patient education.
Broad Research Areas:
Cancer, Population Health, Genetics - Genome Analysis, Clinical Research, Preventive Medicine
Qualifications:
BSc, BA (Hons) PhD
Website:
https://www.unsw.edu.au/medicine-health/our-schools/clinical-medicine/research-impact/research-groups/clinical-research/psychosocial-research-group
Society Memberships & Professional Activities:
- Executive Advisory Board, Breast Cancer Campaign, United Kingdom, 2012-2022
- Psychosocial Section Editor, European Journal of Human Genetics, 2011-2022
- Member of Editorial Board, Familial Cancer, 2013-2022
- Member of Scientific Committee for International Meetings on Psychosocial Aspects of Hereditary Cancer, 2007-2022
- Chair, Human Research Ethics Committee, The Cancer Council of New South Wales, 2003-2012
- Cancer Research Committee, The Cancer Council of New South Wales, 2008-2012
- Secretary, Ethical and Social Issues Committee, Human Genetics Society of Australasia, 2005-2012
- Scientific Advisory Committee, Psycho-Oncology Cooperative Group (PoCoG), 2007-2010
Students supervised:
PhD
- Belinda Thewes, Fertility- and menopause-related information needs of younger women with breast cancer, 2006
- Nadine Kasparian, Psychosocial aspects of hereditary melanoma, 2006
- Claire Wakefield, A randomised trial of a decision aid for genetic testing for cancer susceptibility, 2007
- Michelle Peate, Development and evaluation of a fertility decision aid for young women with breast cancer, 2009
- Elvira Zilliacus, An evaluation of telehealth cancer genetic counselling, 2010
- Alex Wilde, Psychosocial impact of advances in genetic research in psychiatry and implications for health care, 2010
- Janan Karatas, Psychological impact of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, 2010
- Mona Taouk, Development of a psychometric tool to assess adolescent depression, 2013
- Mona Saleh, Beliefs about kinship and hereditary cancer in Arabic-Australians, 2014
- Holly Peay, Psychosocial implications of hereditary muscular dystrophies, 2015
- Sundresan Nackier, Familial Risk and Colorectal Cancer Screening in General Practice, 2017
- Aideen McInerney-Leo, Role of next generation sequencing in disease diagnostics, including psychosocial impact, 2017
- Amanda Willis, An assessment of the psychosocial and behavioural impact of new genomic technologies in the hereditary cancer setting, 2018
- Tatiane Yanes, Psychosocial and behavioural impact of genomic testing for polygenic breast cancer risk, 2020
- Lin Cheng, Patients’ and health professionals’ decision-making about preimplantation genetic testing, 2022
Doctorates in Clinical Psychology
- Kerry Tiller, A randomised trial of a decision aid for women at risk for ovarian cancer, 2003
- Shab Mireskandari, A study of partners of women at high risk for developing breast cancer, 2004
Masters in Clinical Psychology
- Jody Junk-Gibson, A content analysis of prenatal counselling of women with high-risk screening results, 2001
- Helen Gunn, An evaluation of support groups for younger women with breast cancer, 2003
Masters of Genetic Counselling
- Ruth Cowan, A needs analysis of men at increased risk for prostate cancer, 2006
- Stephanie Burcher, Survey of oncology health professionals regarding their experiences with providing treatment-focused genetic testing for women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, 2011
- Alexandra Fleming, Health professional attitudes to direct to consumer genetic testing, 2011
- Amanda Willis, Couples’ preferences for receiving information about prenatal screening, 2013
- Radhika Ragkumar, Psychosocial aspects of genetic counselling in Tamil clients, 2014
- Yanni Chen, Exploring clinician attitudes about using aspirin for risk reduction in people with Lynch Syndrome, 2015
- Morgan Rice, Evaluation of evidenced-based resources to facilitate decision-making about risk-reducing medication for breast cancer risk, 2016
- Cassandra MacDonald, Evaluation of evidence-based consumer resources to facilitate decision making about risk reducing medication for bowel cancer risk, 2017
- Laura Wedd, Psychological impact of reclassification of pathogenicity of unclassified variants, 2018
- Gillian Gregory, Communication analysis of genetic counselling for polygenic breast cancer risk: A quantitative study, 2018
Masters by Research
- Ingrid Sinnerbrink, Follow up of children detected prenatally with chromosomal changes of uncertain significance, 2011
Honours
- Bronwyn Calford, The content and process of telehealth cancer genetic counselling, 2010
- Sophie Putt, Psychological and behavioural impact of genetic testing for bipolar risk: A qualitative study, 2018
Independent Learning Projects
- Paboda Ratnayake, Information dissemination preferences of families at high risk for breast cancer, 2009
- Si Si Zhou, Attitudes of health professionals towards predictive genetic testing of healthy people for susceptibility for depression risk, 2011
- Justin Chau, High School Sun Protection Study, 2011
- Lilian Zou, Exploring beliefs about hereditary depression amongst Chinese-Australians, 2012
- Mimi Zu, Exploring beliefs about hereditary depression amongst Anglo- Australians, 2012
- Ben Storey, Attitudes and information needs regarding next generation sequencing of cancer patients attending hereditary cancer clinic, 2012
- Michelle Wong, Development of low literacy decision aid for women considering prenatal screening, 2013
- Roger Liang, Exploring clinician attitudes towards somatic tumour mutation testing, 2015
- Pierre Hemming, Oncologists’ evaluations of a telephone genetic counselling service for women with ovarian cancer considering genetic testing, 2017
- Lup Lo, Risk of schizophrenia in relatives of individuals affected by schizophrenia: A meta-analysis, 2018
- Melissa Cullen, Implications of genomic risk information in people at genetic risk of schizophrenia: A qualitative study, 2018
- Kuheli Das Gupta, Communication analysis of genetic counselling for polygenic breast cancer risk: A qualitative study, 2019
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision