Mirjam Sprangers - Biography#

Mirjam Sprangers earned a doctor of philosophy degree (1989) from the University of Amsterdam on psychological methods, based on a grant that was specifically written for her. She was then invited to work as a research psychologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute where she familiarized herself with quality of life research. Since 1995 she is based at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers where she coordinates a research line on quality of life with the overall goal to enhance the well-being of somatically ill patients by studying their quality of life and to facilitate the correct inclusion of patient-reported outcomes in patient-based, clinical research. Patient-reported outcomes include among others quality of life, symptoms, treatment adherence, and psychological variables, such as anxiety, depression, and illness cognitions. Her group achieves this goal by conducting three types of studies. First, clinically applied research is aimed at supporting and participating in patient-based clinical studies that include patient-reported outcomes, initiated by (inter)national clinical departments. Second, methodological research is directed at developing and applying advanced statistical and qualitative methods to better examine changes in quality of life, taking shifts in patients’ perspectives over time (known as response shifts) into account. Patient-reported outcome measures are also developed and validated. Third, theoretical research is aimed at delineating the sociodemographic, clinical and psychosocial factors that affect quality of life. These studies are conducted in a range of chronic diseases. From 2003 to 2018 she was also appointed Foreign Adjunct Professor at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden with the assignment to enhance the standards of quality-of-life research by contributing to studies and teaching (e.g., seminars).

She is and has been (founding) member of various (inter)national scientific and professional organizations and research groups, has served on editorial boards and is an ad hoc reviewer for a range of other journals and granting agencies. She has co-authored over 440 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and published 47 other contributions (e.g., book chapters, website texts, registered protocols, articles in professional journals, reports).