Karen J. Foli, PhD, RN, FAAN

Karen J. Foli, PhD, RN, FAAN, is an associate professor at the School of Nursing, Purdue University, West Lafayette Campus. Dr. Foli’s work is bound together by the theme of care rendered through the lens of psychological trauma. Building on her decade of research in parental postadoption depression, Dr. Foli’s theory asserts that unmet or unrealistic expectations held by adoptive parents contribute to depressive symptoms. Dr. Foli’s work has been supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, and private foundations. Dr. Foli is an adoptive parent and a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.

She is an award-winning author of five well-received, health-related books. Published in 2016, Nursing Care of Adoption and Kinship Families: A Clinical Guide for Advanced Practice Nurses, received the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) Award for Media in 2018. She is also the co-author of The Post-Adoption Blues: Overcoming the Unforeseen Challenges of Adoption (2004). Her most recent book, The Influence of Psychological Trauma in Nursing, also co-authored with John R. Thompson, MD (Sigma, 2019), is intended to build resiliency and posttraumatic growth in student and new nurses who face considerable firsthand and secondary trauma.

Written by Karen:
Understanding Parental Postadoption Depression