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Rachel Starkings

Ms Rachel Starkings (MSc, MBPsS)

Research Fellow
E: R.M.L.Starkings@sussex.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1273 873023
Location: Sussex Health Outcomes Research & Education in Cancer (SHORE-C), University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9PX

Research areas: Psychosocial oncology

Twitter handle: @RachResearcher

Biography

Rachel completed her undergraduate degree at the Harriet L Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University with a double major in Psychology and Political Science. She completed a thesis examining the impact of an event's emotional valence on memory and whether there was a difference in binding errors across age groups.

Following on from this, Rachel undertook an MSc at the University of Plymouth with a qualitative dissertation on the categorization of 'home' in relation to the natural environment. Rachel went on to work at The Royal Marsden as a Senior Trial Coordinator for both the Head, Neck and Thyroid group as well as the Renal and Melanoma firm where she was involved in numerous clinical trials, both academic and commercial in nature.

Research

Rachel has been involved in various aspects of research from governance, trial management and as a research fellow. Prior to joining the SHORE-C group, Rachel was a Senior Trial Coordinator at the Royal Marsden with responsibility for both the Head, Neck and Thyroid and Renal and Melanoma portfolios. This included projects that were either academic or commercial in nature.

Since joining the SHORE-C group as a research fellow in 2015, Rachel has been involved in studies exploring quality of life for patients and informal caregivers, communication training for healthcare professionals, and collaborative work with colleagues, including the NIHR funded REDUCe2 study. Rachel has an interest in psychological wellbeing, patient and caregiver wellbeing, and end of life care.

Visit the SHORE-C webpage >

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Teaching

Rachel has provided a recurring lecture at the University of Brighton at the request of Dr Melanie Flint for a cancer special topic group. This 2 hour session covers the concept of stress, how we measure it, and then how we apply that knowledge to the cancer setting.

Selected publications

Fallowfield, L.J., Farewell, D., Jones, H. et al. (2022) ‘IMPARTER, Phase 1 of an intervention to improve patients’ understanding of gene expression profiling tests in breast cancer’, Breast Cancer Res Treat, 192, pp. 265–271. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-021-06491-2

King, L, Matthews, S, Foster, C, et al. (2022) ‘A fascinating time to be involved with research’ exploring the impact of COVID-19 on postgraduate psycho-oncology researchers’. Psychooncology, 31(4) pp. 671- 675. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5885

Fallowfield, L., Solis-Trapala, I., Starkings, R. et al. (2022) ‘Talking about Risk, UncertaintieS of Testing IN Genetics (TRUSTING): development and evaluation of an educational programme for healthcare professionals about BRCA1 & BRCA2 testing’. British Journal of Cancer, 127 pp.1116 - 1122. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-022-01871-x

Starkings, Rachel, Shilling, Valerie and Fallowfield, Lesley (2021) An online review of informational sources for advanced or high-risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. Supportive Care in Cancer. ISSN 0941-4355

Starkings, Rachel, Shilling, Valerie, Jenkins, Valerie and Fallowfield, Lesley (2020) A systematic review of communication interventions to help healthcare professionals discuss genetic testing for breast cancer. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. ISSN 0167-6806

Harder, Helena, Starkings, Rachel M L, Fallowfield, Lesley J, Menon, Usha, Jacobs, Ian J, Jenkins, Valerie A and UKCTOCS, (2019) Sexual functioning in 4,418 postmenopausal women participating in UKCTOCS: a qualitative free-text analysis. Menopause, 26 (10). pp. 1100-1109. ISSN 1072-3714

Fallowfield, L, Solis-Trapala, I, Starkings, R, Catt, S, May, S and Jenkins, V (2019) Talking about risk in the context of genomic tests (TARGET): development and evaluation of an educational programme for clinicians. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. ISSN 0167-6806

Starkings, Rachel, Jenkins, Valerie and Shilling, Valerie (2019) Insights into the use of social comparisons within an advanced cancer setting. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology Research and Practice, 1 (2). a6 1-6. ISSN 2637-5974

Shilling, Valerie, Starkings, Rachel, Jenkins, Valerie, Cella, David and Fallowfield, Lesley (2018) Development and validation of the patient roles and responsibilities scale in cancer patients. Quality of Life Research. ISSN 0962-9343

Shilling, Valerie, Starkings, Rachel, Jenkins, Valerie and Fallowfield, Lesley (2017) The pervasive nature of uncertainty – a qualitative study with patients with advanced cancer and their informal caregivers. Journal of Cancer Survivorship, 11 (5). pp. 590-603. ISSN 1932-2259

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