After nearly 10 years of critical care nursing, Dr. Matura returned to the classroom, earning her MS and PhD degrees, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Health (NIH). She joined the Penn Nursing faculty in 2011, where she began to study symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension and other chronic diseases.
In her current research, Dr. Matura focuses on understanding patients’ symptom experiences and how those symptoms affect outcomes such as functionality and health-related quality of life. In what she called one of the first studies to investigate symptom interference and health-related quality of life in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension, Dr. Matura found that fatigue, shortness of breath on exertion, and difficulty sleeping are the symptoms that most interfere with patients’ lives. The NIH funded this study.
Improving Lives through Symptom Management
Under another NIH-funded study, Dr. Matura is investigating the mechanisms of symptom clusters that include shortness of breath, fatigue and sleep disturbance in chronic illness, especially cardiovascular disease. She is also investigating biomarkers of symptoms, and the role of inflammation in triggering certain symptoms.
Following a path first established while she was a bedside nurse, Dr. Matura’s ultimate goal is to design effective biobehavioral interventions to improve patients’ lives and help them manage their symptoms. These interventions, ranging from mindfulness-based stress reduction to cognitive behavioral therapy, have shown some success in patients.
