Dr Nina Pocuca

Research Fellow

School of Psychology
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
n.pocuca@uq.edu.au
+61 7 344 32569

Overview

Nina Pocuca is a Research Fellow with the Lives Lived Well Research Group, in the School of Psychology, The University of Queensland. Nina works on the Meaningful Outcomes in Substance use Treatments Centre of Research Excellence, which aims to implement routine outcome measures and feedback (ROMF) in the alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector to increase its capacity to deliver evidence-based and cost-effective care.

Nina completed her PhD with the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research at Queensland University of Technology (2019), where her research examined the interplay between personality and peer norms, on alcohol use in young people. Following her PhD, Nina completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California San Diego (UCSD; 2019-2020) and the University of Montreal (2020-2022). Nina's postdoctoral research at UCSD focused on the association between substance use and cognitive function, while her Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Montreal used 25+ years of longitudinal data to examine factors associated with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.

Nina's interests lie in examining factors associated with co-occurring mental health and substance use, understanding the association between substance use and cognitive function, and translating research findings stemming from these areas into practice.

Current projects include:

  • Projects as part of the Meaningful Outcomes in Substance use Treatments Centre of Research Excellence
  • Co-design and acceptability testing of a drug checking/ pill testing brief intervention
  • Using longitudinal birth cohort data to examine the link between alcohol, cannabis and polysubstance use, and cognitive development in youth (collaboration with researchers at the University of Montreal)

Publications

View all Publications

Publications

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Quinn, Catherine, Nykiel, Luke, Pocuca, Nina, Allan, Julaine, Moloney, Gerard and Hides, Leanne (2019). Latent class analysis of trauma, PTSD, addictive behaviours and mental health concerns. 16th European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Conference, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 14-16 June 2019. Abingdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. doi: 10.1080/20008198.2019.1613836

  • Quinn, Catherine A., Hides, Leanne, Walters, Zoe, Riordan, Benjamin C., De Andrade, Dominique, Connor, Jason P., Merrill, Jennifer E., Ward, Rose Marie, Chan, Gary C. K., Pocuca, Nina, Cotton, Susan, Daglish, Mark, Mergard, Lance, Young, Ross and Kavanagh, David (2019). Symposium: novel approaches to address the complexities of youth substance use. APSAD 2019 Conference, Hobart, TAS Australia, 10–13 November 2019. Chichester, West Sussex United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell.

  • Pocuca, N., Hides, L., Quinn, C. A., Mewton, L., Newton, N. C., Slade, T., Chapman, C., Andrews, G., Teesson, M., Birrell, L., Allsop, S. and McBride, N. (2019). The moderating effect of impulsivity on the relationship between anxiety sensitivity and drinking to intoxication in young people. 42nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Research-Society-on-Alcoholism (RSA), Minneapolis, MN USA, 22-26 June 2019. Hoboken, NJ USA: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.

Other Outputs