Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

The Integrated Schizophrenia Recovery Program (ISRP) at The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group (The Royal) provides specialized assessment, treatment, support, and education to clients diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum illnesses. Our services are client-focused, with an emphasis on recovery. Antipsychotics are a mainstay treatment for schizophrenia, however, not all patients with schizophrenia respond to antipsychotics; about 20-30% of patients with schizophrenia do not respond to conventional antipsychotic treatment, including first and second generation antipsychotics (Lieberman & Murray, 2012). Clozapine is the most effective medication for schizophrenia and is considered the gold standard treatment for treatment resistant schizophrenia (TRS) (Lieberman & Murray, 2012). Clozapine is associated with lower all-cause mortality compared to other antipsychotic medications (Vermeulen et al., 2019). However, the results of a recent nation-wide cohort study from Finland showed increased risk of hematological cancer with long-term clozapine use (Tiihonen et al., 2022). The proposed planning activities would allow us to explore this emerging issue and co-develop pertinent research questions and a research design for a future grant application in the Canadian context.