Projects

About the project We are recruiting healthy children and adolescents (aged 8 to 18 years) who do not have a medical condition to participate in a project which investigates their experiences of tiredness, sleep, pain, school and how they feel. We would like to compare the experiences of healthy children and adolescents to those of children and adolescents who have chronic fatigue syndrome so that we can understand the differences. What we learn from this project might lead to the development of interventions to help improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with CFS. You will be asked to fill in a survey now and again in six, 12 and 24 months. Participant criteria Children and adolescents aged between 8 and 18 years who are healthy (i.e., do not have a medical condition) Contact details for study If you would like more information, please contact: Ms Kylie Thomas...

What is RSV? Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a common virus that can cause serious respiratory illness in infants and young children. It is the most common cause of bronchiolitis (inflammation of the small airways in the lung) and pneumonia in infants and young children, which can result in hospitalisation. Preterm infants are at particularly high risk of hospitalisation with an RSV infection. There are no vaccines available to prevent RSV infection. Currently there is a medication to prevent RSV, but it is usually reserved for infants who have serious heart or lung disease, and some premature infants born at less than 28 weeks gestation. Purpose of the study This study is being done to evaluate how effective a new medication (called MEDI8897) is at preventing serious respiratory illness caused by RSV in preterm infants. Who can take part? Healthy infants who were born preterm at 29 to 35 weeks...

Take a Breath is a program of research committed to finding the best way to support families whose child has recently been diagnosed with a serious or life threatening illness or injury. Discovering that a child has a serious illness/ injury is distressing for parents. Along with the emotions and worries of having an ill child, spending time at the hospital for treatment also brings many changes to how the family functions day-to-day. Families adjust differently, so it is important for us to be able to work out at an early stage which families may benefit from additional support services, which will help them and their child in the short term and well into the future. Our program of research recruited parents of children admitted across four hospital departments at The Royal Children’s Hospital: Parents of a child who was admitted to the intensive care unit, for a stay longer...

Commencing in 1983, the Australian Temperament Project (ATP) is an ongoing longitudinal study that has followed the development of a large group of Victorian children from infancy to adulthood, and is now following their children.

Food allergies are becoming more and more common in children and babies. This means that a lot of children end up on hospital outpatient waiting lists for specialist allergy advice. As hospital waiting list times are around 18 months, we want to try a new approach to caring for babies and children with possible food allergies. Funding This research is funded by The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Foundation. Aims This research project aims to improve the management of food allergies in babies and children and is designed to see if community paediatricians (children’s doctors) can look after children with possible food allergies in a similar way to The Royal Children’s Hospital allergy specialists. In this study, we will compare two groups of children with possible food allergy: Group 1 “RCH Allergy Clinic Group” - children currently on RCH Hospital Allergy Clinic wait list, who will stay on the wait list...

The Calm Kids project is about anxiety in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A large number of children with ADHD also experience anxiety (25-50%). We know that anxiety in children with ADHD makes daily life harder for children and their families. The Calm Kids study aims to see whether treating anxiety in children with ADHD improves child anxiety, as well as broader child and family functioning. What does the study involve? The intervention we use to treat anxiety involves, over the course of 10 sessions, teaching children and parents what anxiety is, what causes anxiety, and what children and parents can do to lessen anxiety. To know whether the program helps, we need to compare children who receive the program with children who do not. Children are randomly placed in either the ‘Intervention Group’ or the ‘Usual Care Group’. We also visit our participating families to collect information...

Why is this study being run? Fewer than ten percent of Australians eat according the dietary guidelines. This study is study focused on the health effects of women’s diets during pregnancy. We believe that helping pregnant women to eat better may be relevant for improving the health of mothers and their babies. Because of this, we are conducting a study to test an educational dietary program delivered in the third trimester (from week 26) of pregnancy. We would like to see if the program is helpful to mothers, and also assess any benefits it might have on aspects of mothers’ health (both physical and mental), and aspects of their baby’s health after birth, including gut bacteria.

The Kids in Communities Study (KiCS) is working to understand how different factors in our communities—physical environment, social environment, socio-economic factors, access to services, and governance—influence the way that children develop. We know that the early childhood years have a profound and lasting impact on children’s health and developmental outcomes. We also know that there are different factors in our communities that play a major role in the healthy development of children, particularly the resources that families can access. We don’t know exactly which community factors impact child development, and how we can modify those factors to help all children to have the best start in life. The what and the how is what KiCS wants to answer.

Chief investigators: A/Prof Sharon Goldfeld (Lead Chief Investigator), University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics, Royal Children’s Hospital, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Prof Billie Giles-Corti, McCaughey VicHealth Centre, The University of Melbourne A/Prof Robert Tanton, NATSEM, University of Canberra A/Prof Sally Brinkman, University of Western Australia Centre for Child Health Research Prof Ilan Katz, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales A/Prof Geoff Woolcock, Wesley Mission Brisbane, Griffith University Federal and state government partner organisations: Australian Government Department of Education and Training Australian Bureau of Statistics Victorian Department of Education and Training Australian Capital Territory Community Services Directorate Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service South Australia Department for Education and Child Development New South Wales Department of Education and Communities Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment New South Wales Department of Families and Community Services Non-government partner organisations: The Smith Family Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Wesley Mission...