Despina Laparidou, Research Assistant and part-time PhD student at CaHRU, recently attended the 18th European Congress of Psychology (ECP) at the Brighton Centre in Brighton (3-6 July 2023) and presented the findings of one of her PhD studies, called “The Stressor-Distress Relationship within Informal Carers of People with Dementia: Exploring the Role of Potential Cognitive Mediators and Moderators”.
This year’s theme for the conference was “Psychology: Uniting communities for a sustainable world” and the scientific programme included a combination of keynotes, 3-minute and 7-minute oral presentations, workshops, and posters. There were various thematic streams, including, but not limited to, Climate change and sustainability; Clinical psychology; Community psychology; Cyberpsychology; Forensic psychology; Political psychology and democracy; and Psychological responses to the pandemic.
One other conference theme was Geropsychology. Despina’s 3-minute Thesis presentation discussed the findings of one of her studies, an online questionnaire study, which explores the relationship between stressors (specifically the physical, memory and behavioural problems of people living with dementia) and informal carer distress, looking at cognitive factors that mediate or moderate this relationship and especially the carers’ intrusive thoughts and cognitive coping strategies.
The Conference came to an end with Thursday’s Closing Ceremony and the promise to meet again in 2025 for an even more exciting ECP Conference in Paphos, Cyprus!