Dr. Heike Saßmann is a senior researcher at Hannover Medical School in the Department of Medical Psychology. Her research focuses on chronically ill children, adolescents and young adults, as well as their families. The specific topics of her work include the development and evaluation of training courses for families with chronically ill children, understanding psychosocial distress in people with chronic illnesses and their families, and the evaluation of disease-specific screening instruments. In addition, she is a licensed psychotherapist specializing in family counseling, parent training, coaching and therapy for psychosocial burden caused by type 1 diabetes and comorbid mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression or eating disorders.