Project Research Scientist -III (Non Medical) - ICMR -MCACP Project

Location: Bangalore

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is designed to support life during critical illness; however, in patients with advanced or terminal conditions, continued or escalated intensive interventions may offer limited benefit and instead prolong suffering for patients and families. In India, the lack of structured palliative care integration in ICUs-along with sociocultural expectations, communication gaps, defensive medical practices, and unclear medico-legal frameworks-has contributed to the persistence of non-beneficial end-of-life treatments. Although national guidelines jointly developed by the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine and the Indian Association of Palliative Care exist, their implementation in routine ICU practice remains inconsistent.

To address these gaps, the Multifaceted Comprehensive Appropriate Care Package (MCACP) was developed as a structured, evidence-based framework integrating palliative care principles into ICU workflows. This study aims to pilot the MCACP in an ICU setting to refine implementation strategies, identify facilitators and barriers, and assess preliminary outcomes, including quality of dying, family satisfaction, and care de-escalation practices.

Vacancy: One

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the evaluation framework using implementation science tools such as the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and Normalization Process Theory (NPT).
• Design and conduct mixed-method evaluations, for the research projects assigned by the PI.
• Evaluate the psychosocial aspects of interventions - patients and caregivers across settings - OP, IP ICU
• Document structured observations; transcribe stakeholder interviews in Kannada/English, (translate to English as needed), and pre-post comparisons of intervention outcomes, such as quality of life, quality of death dying, family satisfaction, resource utilization, and costs.
• Plan and conduct staff-training
• Ensure data triangulation and integrity by validating qualitative and quantitative findings across stakeholders, including patients, families, ICU staff, and administrators.
• Study of the cognitive, emotional experience, in caregivers, care-providers of the study population, contribute to the domains of interventions, apply, review and record.
• Coordinate timely communication and follow-up across the pilot project-sites
• Contribute to midline and endline analyses to inform programmatic and policy recommendations
• Contribute to developing suitable methods to identify populations needing palliative approach, integrate and evaluate care
• Contribute to assessing objectivity and rigor in evaluating implementation fidelity, ethical compliance, and the contextual adaptability of the MCACP intervention. This role ensures that the collected data is systematically analysed and that the impact of the intervention is accurately measured using both qualitative and quantitative metrics.
• Contribute to drafting, reviewing, revising the manuscripts ensuing out of the research projects, until publication

Eligibility Criteria

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master with research experience or a PhD degree in Psychology, Public Health, Sociology, or related disciplines.
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative research
• Working knowledge of Kannada and Microsoft 365 Office Suite.

Skills expected

• Use of NVivo or MAXQDA
• Conduct Focused Group Discussion
• Familiarity with implementation science frameworks (e.g., CFIR, NPT).

Experience: Minimum 2 years

Preferred Language: English, Kannada