Grant: Project Grant

Approximately 30% of all youth who seek health care in the emergency department (ED), have underlying mental health (MH) concerns. Unrecognized, MH issues may exacerbate the severity and frequency of youth's physical symptoms, their therapeutic needs, and hinder responses to treatment. Screening youth to detect and address MH concerns early, also helps improve MH outcomes. However, the ED is a busy place where clinicians are often preoccupied with more visible health problems, resulting in missed opportunities to optimize care in the ED. We recently adapted a clinical tool for families and youth to self-assess their MH status. This tool is called MyHEARTSMAP. It addresses 10 areas: home, education, alcohol & drugs, relationships & bullying, thoughts & anxiety, safety, sexual health, mood & behaviour, abuse, and professional resources. The severity and urgency of concerns across each category is assessed and then linked by an embedded algorithm to recommendations for services that families and youth can access. Our study goal is to evaluate MyHEARTSMAP with families and youth. First, using a set of fictional scenarios, we will determine if MyHEARTSMAP is a reliable tool for youth and families to use. Second, we will determine if MyHEARTSMAP is a valid tool. To do this, we will recruit families and youth (age 10-17) in the ED to use MyHEARTSMAP to self-assess the youth's mental health status. The families' self-assessment will then be compared to that of a clinician. Our project aims to provide a reliable and valid self-assessment MH tool for use in the ED, which will identify youth that could benefit from early intervention, to help optimize their ED care, and appropriately link families to resources. Because the tool relies on youth and family self-reporting, it allows for families' increased ownership over their health, while creating a more patient-centered and individualized care plan, but with minimal impact on ED flow.