Karen L Weihs, MD

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Behavioral Measurement and Interventions Shared Resource
Biography
Dr. Weihs is a graduate of the University of Iowa College of Medicine. She completed her residency in Family Medicine and practiced on the faculty of Family Medicine at Brown University prior to returning to a Psychiatry Residency Training, including child psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. She then obtained a K24 Scientist Development Award for Clinicians to obtain research training and experience at the George Washington University, College of Medicine, Center for Family Research under the mentorship of David Reiss, M.D. She has an active program of research as well as a clinical and teaching practice of psychoOncology and psychotherapy at UA.
Cancer Focus
Dr. Weihs has an ongoing program of psychosocial intervention research at the UA Cancer Center, where she also has an active clinical practice of psychiatric care for cancer patients embedded with the multidisciplinary team. She collaborates with intervention scientists to test innovative approaches to psychosocial interventions for breast cancer patients. She has conducted three prospective longitudinal studies to determine the impact of emotional and interpersonal processes on medical, psychiatric, functional and quality of life outcomes in breast cancer patients. These studies enrolled 179, 140 and 460(two sites) subjects with multiple occasions of in depth data collection over 1 – 3 years with seven year follow-up for disease outcomes.
Selected Publications
Weihs, K. L., M. H. McConnell, J. F. Wiley, C. M. Crespi, S. Sauer-Zavala, and A. L. Stanton, "A preventive intervention to modify depression risk targets after breast cancer diagnosis: Design and single-arm pilot study.", Psychooncology, vol. 28, issue 4, pp. 880-887, 2019 04. PMCID: PMC6445679 PMID: 30803095
Robbins, M. L., A. Karan, A. María López, and K. L. Weihs, "Naturalistically observing noncancer conversations among couples coping with breast cancer.", Psychooncology, vol. 27, issue 9, pp. 2206-2213, 2018 Sep. PMID: 29904980
Stanton, A. L., J. F. Wiley, J. L. Krull, C. M. Crespi, and K. L. Weihs, "Cancer-related coping processes as predictors of depressive symptoms, trajectories, and episodes.", J Consult Clin Psychol, vol. 86, issue 10, pp. 820-830, 2018 Oct. PMCID: PMC6166440 PMID: 30265041
Weihs, K. L., J. F. Wiley, C. M. Crespi, J. L. Krull, and A. L. Stanton, "Predicting future major depression and persistent depressive symptoms: Development of a prognostic screener and PHQ-4 cutoffs in breast cancer patients.", Psychooncology, vol. 27, issue 2, pp. 420-426, 2018 02. PMID: 28600855
Howe, G. W., M. Cimporescu, R. Seltzer, J. M. Neiderhiser, F. Moreno, and K. Weihs, "Combining Stress Exposure and Stress Generation: Does Neuroticism Alter the Dynamic Interplay of Stress, Depression, and Anxiety Following Job Loss?", J Pers, vol. 85, issue 4, pp. 553-564, 2017 08. PMCID: PMC5116422 PMID: 27197979
Czamanski-Cohen, J., and K. L. Weihs, "The Bodymind Model: A platform for studying the mechanisms of change induced by art therapy.", Arts Psychother, vol. 51, pp. 63-71, 2016 Sep. PMCID: PMC5074079 PMID: 27777492
Stanton, A. L., J. F. Wiley, J. L. Krull, C. M. Crespi, C. Hammen, J. J. B. Allen, M. L. Barrón, A. Jorge, and K. L. Weihs, "Depressive episodes, symptoms, and trajectories in women recently diagnosed with breast cancer.", Breast Cancer Res Treat, vol. 154, issue 1, pp. 105-15, 2015 Nov. PMID: 26420401