Dr Rebecca Feo

Senior Research Fellow

College of Nursing and Health Sciences

place Sturt North (N209)
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia

Dr Feo is a Senior Research Fellow in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Since beginning work in academia in 2015, Dr Feo has achieved national and international recognition for her research on the role of professional therapeutic relationships and communication in ensuring high-quality care delivery. She applies this research expertise specifically in relation to fundamental care (the universal care required by everyone regardless of clinical condition or care setting) and help-seeking for familial and parenting issues.

In recognition of her substantial research expertise and impact, in 2023 Dr Feo was appointed the inaugural International Learning Collaborative (ILC) Erik Sorensen Foundation Fellow for Research. The ILC is the foremost global organisation dedicated to transforming fundamental care. Since 2023, she has also served as a member of the ILC's Strategy and Policy Forum, providing advice on the organisation's strategic direction.

As further recognition of her expertise in fundamedntal care, in 2024, Dr Feo was appointed the College of Nursing and Health Science's inaugural Nexus Scholar. In this role, she will embed a focus on fundamental care into health sciences curricula.

Qualifications

BPsych(Hons), PhD

Honours, awards and grants
  • 2023: Contracted Research - Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
  • 2020: Research Grant - Nurses' Memorial Foundation of SA
  • 2019: Mid Career Researcher Award - College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University
  • 2019: Research Grant - Australian College of Nursing
  • 2018: Seed Funding - The Hospital Research Foundation
  • 2015: Research Travel Award for Early Career Researcher - Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Adelaide
  • 2012: Dean's Commendation for Thesis Excellence - The University of Adelaide
  • 2007: University Medal - The University of Adelaide
  • 2007: Australian Psychological Society Prize in Psychology
Teaching interests

Fundamental care

Patient-provider relationships

Therapeutic communication

Topic coordinator
HLTH7013 Research Methods 1
HLTH7012 Research Communication and Translation
Supervisory interests
Acute medical-surgical nursing
Conversation analysis
Gender
Health psychology
Men's health and masculinity
Nurse education
Patient experience
Patient preferences
Patient/consumer, safety and quality
Social psychology
Social research methods, interviewing, survey research, data analysis
Higher degree by research supervision
Current
Associate supervisor: Newly graduated nurses experiences of fundamental care delivery (1), Social norms for complementary feeding (1), ICU nurses experience of fundamental care delivery (1)
Completion
Associate supervisor: Nursing care in the management of disasters (1), Men's experiences of depression and anxiety (1), Nursing care models in Ethiopia (1), Multi-disciplinary care for people with T2DM (1)
Higher degree by research student achievements
Dewi Retno Pamungkas

Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence - OCT 2020

Phoebe Drioli-Phillips

Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence - NOV 2020

Interests
  • Care provider-recipient relationships
  • Fundamental care
  • Men's help-seeking
  • Nurse-patient relationships
  • Relational care