Grant: Operating Grant: SickKids-CIHR-IHDCYH New Investigator Grants

In Northwestern Ontario, youth access mental health services less often and have longer waits than youth in other areas of the province. Limited access and extended waits can exacerbate symptoms, prolong distress, increase risk for suicide, self-harm, and hospitalization, and negatively impact engagement. In partnership with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and Children’s Centre Thunder Bay, our team proposes to evaluate the impact of a mental health app (JoyPop) as a tool for youth who are waiting for mental health services. We focus primarily on emotion regulation given that there are key deficits in this area across many youth mental health disorders and that early attention to emotion regulation can lead to a better treatment response. Despite their promise, significant gaps exist between the growing number of apps available in the public domain and empirical demonstration of the beneficial impacts of apps on users. Of the apps that address emotion regulation, most have not been evaluated, are narrow in scope, or have only been evaluated among non-diverse adult populations. The JoyPop app includes a broader focus, and our research is unique in that we focus on rigorously evaluating the JoyPop app as a tool for treatment-seeking, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, youth in Northwestern Ontario. Using a randomized controlled trial design, the primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of the JoyPop app compared to usual practice in improving emotion regulation among youth (aged 12-18) who are waiting for mental health services. Secondary objectives include assessing changes in mental health symptoms and treatment motivation, defining a minimal clinically important difference in emotion regulation, assessing app acceptability, conducting an economic evaluation, and comparing results among Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth and youth across the gender spectrum. This trial builds upon pilot data and feedback from community partners and caregiver/youth advisors over the past several years.