Grant: Team Grant: Community-Based Primary Healthcare - LOI

Primary care plays a major role in providing mental health care. Of all mental disorders, anxiety disorders (AD) are the most common and represent a considerable economic burden. Sources indicate that for many patients, it takes up to 10 years to be diagnosed and that a significant number of patients do NOT receive the treatments we know work. Our research program will produce knowledge ensuring early detection of AD as well as improving access to treatments that work for all Canadians. The vision of the team is that all mental health service providers offer people with AD the treatments that are known to work and have those treatments become part of routine primary care. To achieve this, change and transformation need to happen within the health care system; all key players (health ministry-level decision makers, health economists, policy-makers, health organizations, health service providers, and patients) must agree that this is important, and also agree as to the why, who, what, where, when and how treatments that work can be accessible to all Canadians. Our team includes researchers from various disciplines, provinces and countries but also primary care providers. The research program will aim to determine 1) what are the various components that allow for treatments that work to be part of routine medical practice and 2) whether incorporating those treatments will improve accessibility and health as well as reduce costs. To achieve this, we will, first, carry out inter-related projects to evaluate current practices, identify the key components of good models of care and develop a framework to guide the implementation of change. In a second phase, we will implement various models of care for AD across four provinces and test their effectiveness against usual care. Successful models will have the potential to be replicated and scaled-up ensuring transformation of primary mental health care for all Canadians.