Our Students are an integral part of all the research we do! Today we are shining a spotlight on Rigel Paciente, one of our PhD Research Students with the Children's Diabetes Centre and Healing Kids Healing Families teams at The Kids Research Institute, Perth.
They are currently studying a PhD in Medicine (Mental Health), looking at suicidal and self-injurious thoughts and behaviours in young people living with T1D at the University of WA. Before starting their PhD, Rigel has engaged in other research endeavours, with the most recent being traumatic stress in young people living with T1D.
Tell us a little bit about you and why you're here?
I feel absolutely privileged to be able to engage with young people, families, and clinicians working in the T1D space. I am very passionate about young people’s mental health, especially as someone who has lived experience with poor mental health. I suppose that’s also why I’ve engaged in mental health research – to help other young people who may be going through similar situations through their own journey, and leaving an impact at both the individual and systemic basis!
Why did you get into T1D research?
I initially got into T1D research as an RA, helping with mental health-related qualitative research. This has then escalated into related work, such as helping with the development of Wellbeing-T1D program (a psychoeducation intervention for young people living with T1D) and other work that the mental health theme in the CDC engages with! There was also a clear gap in research and practice that the young people in the Wellbeing-T1D study noted, which they had previously not received a lot of help for which is their experience of suicide and self-injury; hence tackling this problem through my PhD!
Tell us a little more about your PhD research project?
My PhD Project is the PERSIST study (The Phenomenology of Suicidal and Self-injurious Thoughts and Behaviours among Young People living with T1D). The entire PhD project aims to do three things:
1. Explore what key gaps there are in suicide prevention research and clinical practice in the paediatric and young adult T1D setting. We understand that diabetes clinics are potentially among the first places that a young person with T1D may disclose feelings of suicide and self-injury, so this aim will help determine what research/clinical practice does well already and areas we can improve in suicide prevention.
2. Explore the experiences of young people (15 to 25 years old) living with T1D related to suicidal or self-injurious thoughts and behaviours. We want to better understand the factors that leads to these thoughts and behaviours, how young people cope in the moment to overcome the crisis, and their choices to seek help/not seek help. If we understand this event in its entirety, it will be easier to determine how we can best help young people at every stage of a potential suicidal crisis.
3. Explore how diabetes clinicians in Australia handle suicidal disclosure, their preparedness to respond (at individual, organisational, and systemic levels), any training in suicide prevention they have received (or would like to receive). With this, we want to work collaboratively with clinicians to understand what they perceive they do well when it comes to suicide prevention while also identifying areas that they perceive may need improvement.
Overall, we will paint a complete picture of what suicide prevention should look like for young people living with T1D who may have experienced or will experience a suicidal crisis.
What T1D research breakthroughs would you like to see in the next 10 years?
Obviously, there are a lot of researchers in the biomedical space that are trying hard to prevent the onset of T1D or cure T1D post-onset already. While these treatments are still unavailable, there will be young people who will struggle with their mental health – we understand that T1D is particularly demanding and burdensome for the young people and their families. Continuing to improve on the models of care would be a great thing to aspire to such that we can appropriately help young people who may be at a higher risk of poor mental health. Hopefully, my PhD can feed into this body of research, which I’m aware my colleagues are already working towards in other areas of mental health.
What do you like to do outside of your work?
Outside of work, I enjoy a myriad of hobbies that younger people may perceive as uncool. I enjoy Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, playing Dungeons and Dragons, watching other people play Dungeons and Dragons. Note that dragons are not always present in Dungeons and Dragons – the name of the game lies sometimes. I guess I must come off as a responsible adult, so I’ll also say I love reading (not work-related reading), cooking, and paying off my mortgage, which I do, but it’s boring to admit these things.