Jane completed a PhD exploring the association between chronic pain systems and engaging in meaningful daily activity, at Victoria University in 2021.

She is a specialist Health Psychologist and has worked in research, private practice, community health, and is currently a psychologist at Precision, Brain, Spine and Pain.

In her teaching role, Jane is a lecturer in the Osteopathy Program at Victoria University.

Her professional interests include developing psychometric tests, health risk assessment, behavioural factors associated with chronic illness, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and the association of dispositional optimism with the outcomes of clinical interventions. 

Over the last 12 years Jane has been working on the application of outcome measures to assess osteopathic patient’s perceived outcomes of treatment. This work has primarily involved establishing what comorbidities and patient-specific variables affect the outcomes of, and satisfaction with, osteopathic treatment.

View Jane's Orcid profile

Portfolios

College of Health and Biomedicine, Osteopathic Medicine Program

Areas of expertise

  • Chronic illness management
  • Clinical education
  • Developing psychometric tests for specific clinical cohorts
  • Health Psychology
  • Outcomes assessment

Contact details

[email protected]

Teaching responsibilities

Coordination

HBS 2002 Patient and Health 1

Teaching

HMH7902 Evidence for Practice 8

HMH7903 Evidence for Practice 9

Supervision

Co supervisor of 1 PhD Student

Supervisor of 27 masters projects in osteopathy, Masters by Coursework (Masters in Health Science).

Publications 2013–20

Vaughan, B., Fitzgerald, K., Mulcahy, J. & Austin, P.  (2019). Evaluating patient's understanding of pain neurophysiology: Rasch analysis of the Neurophysiology of Pain Questionnaire.  Clinical Journal of Pain, 35, 133-139.

Vaughan, B., Burns, C., Burridge, L., Wigger, J., Blair, S. & Mulcahy, J. (2019). Patient satisfaction and perception of treatment in a student-led osteopathy teaching clinic: Evaluating questionnaire dimensionality and internal structure, and outcomes.  International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.  31, 21-27. doi: 10.1016/j.ijosm.2019.01.002

Vaughan, B., Fitzgerald, K., Fleischmann, M., & Mulcahy, J. (2020) Determinants of health, health behaviours and demographic profile of patients attending an Australian university student-led osteopathy clinic.  Chiropractic & Manual Therapies.28 (1), 2. doi: 10.1186/s12998-019-0292-5

Vaughan, B., Mulcahy; J., Allen; T., Coupe; E., Gobbo; D., Nassar; L., Pain; K. & Fitzgerald, K. (2020) Life satisfaction and musculoskeletal complaints in a population seeking osteopathy care: consecutive sample of 611 patients, Chiropractic & Manual Therapies. 28 (1) 1-7.

Mest, J. Vaughan, B. Mulcahy, J. & Malliaras, P. (2020). The prevalence of self-reported psychological characteristics of adults with lower limb tendinopathy. Muscles, Ligaments and Tendons Journal 2020; 10 (4) 2020;10 (4):659-671.

Conference presentations

2018 Poster Presentation. Health literacy across all year levels of a cohort of Australian osteopathy students. International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). PRO’s in the digital age: new frontiers in research, policy and practice. 24-27 October, Dublin, Ireland.

2018 Poster Presentation. Partners in Health (PIH) Scale Responses of Musculoskeletal Patients in a Student Clinic. International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). PRO’s in the digital age: new frontiers in research, policy and practice. 24-27 October, Dublin, Ireland. 

2018 Chaired Learning Environment - Community. Oral Session Australiana and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Education (ANZAHAPE). Sustainability for Health Professionals, 1-4 July, Hobart.

Professional memberships

  • Registered Psychologist, State of Victoria
  • Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS)
  • Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society College of Health Psychologists 

Industry experience

2021 Precision, Brain, Spine and Pain. EFT .40 Psychologist providing psychological assessments, pre- and post-surgery counselling to WorkCover and TAC chronic-pain patients.

2019-2021 Connect Health & Community

EFT .40 Psychologist providing counselling services to Accessible Psychological Intervention (API) clients referred to Connect Health and Community by SEMPHN.    

  • Provision of professional consultations and ‘episodes of care’ in accordance with South East Melbourne PHN Operational Guidelines as defined as continuous sessions of professional consultation from first point of contact until discharge.
  • Provision of evidenced-based psychological assessment and treatment to complex (Category 2) clients including ATSI and CALD communities, persons experiencing homelessness, persons at risk of suicide, perinatal depression, persons experiencing AOD issues and family violence.
  • Planning and implementation of appropriate follow–up strategies, including referral to other team members, clinicians or agencies as required.
  • Report writing including formal recommendations on actions to be taken.
  • Provision of various modes of counselling work, including centre-based and outreach, face-to-face, online and telephone.

1995 – 2016 Psychology private practice

As a registered psychologist, Jane provided psychological services to patients funded by Medicare, WorkCover, TAC, Comcare, Victims of Crime, Community Agencies and private patients. 

These patients presented with a variety of clinical problems, such as chronic pain, physiological stress reactions, adjustment disorders to life events and circumstances, clinical anxiety and depression, substance dependence, and posttraumatic stress disorder.