Euforea chair

Introduction

The internet is a major source of information for patients when they experience symptoms or receive a diagnosis. For patients with upper and/or lower airway diseases, there is a great need for reliable and neutral, non-sponsored information about their condition(s). To date, information on these diseases is scattered across various websites, despite the conditions often occurring together. Additionally, the reliability of the available information is not always verifiable or content-wise adequate.

EUFOREA (“European Forum for Research and Education in Allergy and Airway Diseases”) is an international non-profit organization involving various stakeholders (including national and international organizations, patients) with the common vision of preventing or reducing the burden of chronic airway diseases (asthma, chronic rhinosinusitis, rhinitis). EUFOREA aims to promote this vision through education, research, advocacy, and the implementation of new digital solutions.

Objectives

The objective of the EUFOREA chair is to provide financial support for the development of an educational patient portal, specifically for patients with upper and lower airway diseases. This initiative is part of the ADAP³T program (“Airways Disease Action Plan for Personalized and Preventive Treatment”). The patient portal will offer reliable and neutral information about the nature of the condition, the course of the disease, diagnostics, the impact of lifestyle changes, therapeutic options (both medicinal and non-medicinal), and so forth.

Donor

Period

2024-2026

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Philippe Gevaert, ENT specialist at Ghent University Hospital and professor in the Department of Head and Skin of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Ghent University.

Chair holder

Sophie Scheire obtained her master's degree in Pharmaceutical Care from Ghent University in 2016, after which she started working as a community pharmacist. In May 2017, she began a PhD program at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UGent), a project in close collaboration with the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Ghent University Hospital. The scientific research that was part of her PhD was combined with part-time employment in a community pharmacy, while she was also closely involved in the education of future pharmacists as an assistant.
With a PhD in hand, Dr. Scheire now supports the ADAP³T program (Airways Disease Action Plan for Personalized and Preventive Treatment), with financial support from this EUFOREA chair. Within EUFOREA, she serves as the Patient Education Manager and is responsible for the content development and graphic design of the brand-new educational portal for patients with upper and/or lower airway diseases. All this is done in close collaboration with the EUFOREA management team, experts from the academic and medical fields, and the patient advisory board.