Professor Cristina Alfaro Díaz has been awarded with the award Extraordinary doctorate of the School of Nursing.

Cristina Alfaro Díaz, professor at School of Nursing, has been awarded with the award Extraordinary of doctorate. This distinction is submission to the best doctoral thesis defended at the University of Navarra.

Alfaro carried out her doctoral thesis in the framework of a pioneering project in Spain whose goal is to implement Family Nursing in the internship clinical oncology. The professor's thesis "Implementación de la Enfermería de Familia en oncología: Diagnóstico del contexto de la internship clínica" was the first phase of project and was defended by the doctoral student in the 20-21 course under the direction of Dr. Ana Canga Armayor and Dr. Nuria Esandi.

For the development of this work, Alfaro carried out a diagnosis of the context of the internship clinical in Oncology: "We wanted to know the attitudes and beliefs of the nursing professionals who care for these patients, to know what importance they attach to including the family in the care and what barriers and facilitators they find in the internship for the work with the family", explains the researcher. The results of this research showed that, despite the fact that the nurses recognize the impact that oncologic disease has on the family unit and that, as they themselves point out, "oncologic disease is a family matter", even in the clinical internship , the family is not included in a systematized and professional way. "The results reinforce the importance of oncology nurses receiving training, which provides them with knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to implement a family care approach ," adds the professor.

The next phase of project focuses on the design of a training program in family nursing, adapted to the oncology context. This program will be aimed at train nursing professionals to provide a approach of care directed to the family unit. "The current goal of project is to train during the 21-22 academic year the nurses of the Oncology Unit of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra (CUN) to develop the skill necessary to implement family-oriented care in oncology in a systematized and sustainable way," concludes Cristina Alfaro.

A thesis with accredited specialization international

Cristina Alfaro Díaz is graduated in Nursing (ENF'15) and in the Master's Degree in internship Advanced and management in Nursing (MPAGE'16) by the University of Navarra. From 2016 to 2020 she has been staff researcher at training (PIF) of the School Nursing.

The doctoral thesis , with which she has obtained award Extraordinary doctorate, has the accredited specialization International for the three-month pre-doctoral stay she made at the University of Iceland (Iceland). This experience allowed her to work with a team of prestigious international researchers in the area of Family Nursing. In addition, she is co-author of eight scientific publications in international nursing journals and has participated in various national and international conferences, where she had the opportunity to present the results of her research.