Karsten Knol

What is your role within the Academic Collaborative Centre related to people with PIMD?
I am a PhD candidate at the Academic Collaborative Centre EMB. This entails that I am doing research and writing articles for my doctorate thesis. I am involved in the Faces of loneliness project. In this research project, we are investigating loneliness among informal carers with an intensive care duty in a phase of life where this is unusual. These could be parents of children with intensive support needs, partners of people with chronic conditions, or young carers.

What do you hope to achieve?
The ultimate goal of the project is to develop interventions which could be used to reduce or prevent loneliness among informal carers. On a personal level, it would be gratifying if through our research we succeed in generating publicity for this issue, with informal carers feeling they are being listened to, and that their struggles are recognised.