Grant: Planning Grants

Given the risks, such as occupational and social disability, associated with the onset of mental illness in youth, the importance of early intervention programs for young people experiencing the onset of severe mental illness, such as first episode psychosis, has been readily recognized in the literature and by policy makers. Evaluation studies such as, the Matryoshka Project, indicate that participants received services which resulted in decreased hospital and emergency department visits. However, data from the Matryoshka Project also found that the majority of participants identified their futures as highly uncertain. Research also demonstrates that the clinical gains made in early intervention programs were lost once the care was transferred to generic community mental health care teams. The need to address this gap is critically important to avert the substantial levels of disability observed in youth living with psychosis. Our group of researchers and knowledge users propose to develop an innovative multi-component intervention (i.e. - youth, families and care providers) to sustain the recovery process for youth experiencing psychosis, as they transition from specialized services to community-based primary care services. Our objective is to bring together a regional and national group of researchers and knowledge users to prepare a CIHR PHSI grant directed toward implementing and evaluating a multi-component intervention to facilitate the transition from specialized early intervention psychosis programs to primary care. Creating a partnership with researchers, decision makers, policy makers, and users of research is essential to develop a well designed research study which simultaneously integrates effective knowledge exchange. It is anticipated that this multi-component intervention will have applicability to other at-risk youth who are transitioning from specialized services to primary care.