Nathalie Patty

My name is Nathalie Patty and I am a PhD candidate at Clinical Child and Family Studies. The topic of my PhD is “burnout among parents of children with complex care needs”. While the concept of burnout has been widely applied in a work context, research on burnout in the context of parenting is still in its infancy. My PhD focuses on understanding burnout in the context of parents of children with complex care needs. Specifically, factors contributing to burnout as well as resilience factors, prevalence, and how burnout may fluctuate over time. The PhD is part of the project “Ouders in Evenwicht” (Parents in Balance) of Viveon, the academic collaborative center of ’s Heeren Loo and VU. The project group consists of a diverse team of researchers, healthcare professionals, and parents of children with complex care needs. On top of conducting research, I also participate in supervising master thesis students.

I currently live in The Hague with my husband and our son, but I was born and raised in Finland. A fun fact is that my mother tongue is not Finnish but Swedish, which is the second official language in Finland (6% of the people in Finland have Swedish as their mother tongue). On my spare time I like doing high-intensity interval training, cycling, shopping and eating exotic foods. I also love travelling (backpacking), and I hope once my son is older that we can go for an extensive backpack trip to Latin America.