Dr Vari Wileman PhD

Vari’s PhD research evaluated psychology interventions for treatment adherence for people receiving haemodialysis for kidney disease. She joined the Health Psychology team at KCL in 2014 on a three-year post-doctoral research programme (NIHR RfPB), evaluating Physiotherapy informed by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (PACT) for adults with chronic low back pain. She then moved to the Centre for Behavioural Medicine at UCL to support their NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC), Optimising Behaviour and Engagement with Care research programme. Concurrently, under CLAHRC, Vari was part of the TANDEM research team at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Queen Mary University of London. The TANDEM trial investigated whether a cognitive behavioural approach (CBA) intervention, delivered by respiratory nurses and physiotherapists, could help improve treatment uptake and outcomes in people with COPD. Returning to KCL in 2020, Vari teaches on the Medicine, MBBS programme and contributes to the Intercalated BSc Psychology and MSc Health Psychology programmes. Vari is a member of the IBD BOOST research trial team, an online self-management programme which uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) strategies to support patients, where she is responsible for training and supervision of trial facilitator team and is leading on the trial intervention fidelity assessment.

Research interests

• Applying psychological methods in understanding behaviour relevant to health, long-term illness and healthcare provision.
• Developing psychological theory-based interventions to help people engage with treatment for long-term conditions.
• Enabling clinical professionals to enhance their healthcare provision using health psychology behaviour change techniques.