Dr. Olimpia Paun started working at Rush University Medical Center as a gero-psychiatric nurse in 1992. In 2002 she joined the faculty in the College of Nursing and is currently a Professor in the Department of Community, Systems and Mental Health Nursing. She has received her BSN from the University of Oklahoma (1990) and MSN and PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1994 and 2000 respectively). Between 2004 and 2006 she has completed post-doctoral studies through a John A. Hartford Foundation, Claire M. Fagin Fellowship.
Her area of clinical expertise is advanced practice psychiatric nursing with a focus on geriatric populations. As a researcher, she is focusing on interventions for family caregivers who placed relatives diagnosed with dementia in long-term care facilities. In past years she has received funding from local (Rush University) and regional (Midwest Nursing Research Society) sources to investigate dementia caregivers’ mental and physical health needs. In 2008 she received federal funding (National Institute of Nursing Research [NINR]) to pilot- test a group-based intervention she had created to address caregivers’ chronic grief after placing their relatives in long-term care.
Currently, Dr. Paun and her research team are testing a digital delivery of the group-based Chronic Grief Management Intervention-Video in a randomized clinical trial recently funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Results from this study will further inform the translation of the intervention into long-term care settings. Her research findings are published in nursing and non-nursing journals.
