Dr Cat (Catherine) Connaughton
DPsychHealth GDipPsych GDipAdolHlthWelf GDipChildAdlCoun BAppSci MAPS FCHP
- Senior Lecturer and Unit Coordinator
- Research Supervisor
Research Expertise
- Psychological burden associated with caring for a child with a food allergy
- Translational research in prevention and early intervention with infants at high-risk of neurodevelopmental delay
- Children’s health including body image, transitions, and emotional wellbeing
- Men’s health and wellbeing including sexual dysfunction in men
- Quality of Life in older adults with osteoporosis
Research Supervision
- Doctorate/PhD
- Masters
- Honours
Teaching
Catherine is the current Unit Coordinator of the two subjects below:
- HON403 Psychological Assessment within the Honours in Psychology Course
- HON407 Developmental Psychopathology Across the Lifespan within the Honours in Psychology Course
Clinical Expertise
Cat has previously worked in community settings as a psychologist for the Child and Youth Mental Health Service, in schools providing assessments and therapeutic intervention to children and young people, in addition to private practice. Areas of work include body image, anxiety, depression, health-related areas of psychology, cognitive and educational assessments.
About
Cat is a mid-career research fellow and health psychologist who has worked part-time in research, clinical practice, teaching, and in consultancy roles for private and public organisations since graduation in 2012. She has worked clinically for years with children and young people, such as community settings as a psychologist for the Child and Youth Mental Health Service, in schools providing assessments and therapeutic intervention to children and young people, as well as with children, young people, and families in private practice.
Relative to opportunity in research, Cat has had success in competitive applications for external funding. She has been both CI’s and AI’s on grants that translated health-related research findings to clinical outcomes for patients, two of which were based on a pilot wellbeing program that she developed, facilitated and evaluated. Three other grants were in relation to current work on implementing a follow-up protocol for infants at high-risk of neurodevelopmental delays and their families. External competitive grant funding awarded to Cat is over $180,000. Cat has also been a recipient of several awards, including the Amgen OA-ANZBMS Clinical Grants Program, and the Best Early Career Oral Presentation at the ASBHM and APS College of Health Psychologists Conference in 2017. Cat has also co-authored journal articles and book chapters, and in the past has had a peer reviewer role for several prestigious psychological journals. Cat has supervised honours and PhD students to completion through The Cairnmillar Institute, Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. She currently holds appointments at The University of Melbourne, The Cairnmillar Institute, and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
Key Publications
Talevski, J., Sanders, K.M., Busija, L., Beauchamp, A., Duque, G., Borgstrom, F., Kanis, J., Svedbom, A., Connaughton, C., Stuart, A., Brennan-Olsen, S., (2020). Health Service Use and Quality of Life Recovery 12-months Following Major Osteoporotic Fracture: Latent Class Analyses of the International Costs and Utilities Related to Osteoporotic Fractures Study (ICUROS). Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, DOI: 10.1002/jbmr.4181.
Naureen, G., Sanders, K.M., Busija, L., Scott, D., Lim, K., Talevski, J., Connaughton, C., Brennan-Olsen, S., (2020). Prediction models and questionnaires developed to predict vitamin D status in adults: a systematic review. Osteoporosis International, 31, 2287-2302. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-020-05539-1.
Tatangelo, G.L., Watts, J., Lim, K., Connaughton, C., Abimanyi-Ochom, J., Borgström, F., Nicholson, G., Shore-Lorenti, C., Stuart, A., Iuliano-Burns, S., Seeman, E., Prince, R., March, L., Cross, M., Winzenberg, T., Laslett, L., Duque, G., Ebeling, P., Sanders, K.,(2019). The cost of osteoporosis, osteopenia, and associated fractures in Australia in 2017. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, DOI: 10.1002/jbmr.3640.
McCabe, M. P., & Connaughton, C. Mellor, D. Tatangelo, GL., & Busija, L. (2017). Healthy me: A gender-specific program to address body image concerns and risk factors among preadolescents. Body Image, 20, 20-30. DOI:10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.10.007.
Connaughton, C., & McCabe, M. & Karantzas, G., (2016). Conceptualization of the sexual response models in men: are there differences between sexually functional and dysfunctional men? Journal of Sexual Medicine, 13, 453-463. DOI.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2015.12.032.