Grant: Team Grant: Health Challenges in Chronic Inflammation Initiative - (Full Appl)

This Team Grant will create a multi-disciplinary team with complementary expertise. Our team will focus on the problem of psychiatric comorbidity (such as depression and anxiety disorders) in persons with chronic immuno-inflammatory diseases including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), multiple sclerosis (MS) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The research program has several objectives. First, we will identify the frequency of psychiatric comorbidities among persons with IBD, MS, and RA as compared to the general population, determining how this varies according to age, sex, region and socioeconomic status. Second, we will assess the impact of psychiatric comorbidity on MS in three ways. By focusing on health care utilization, mortality and health-related quality of life we will gain a broad perspective on how psychiatric comorbidity influences health. By focusing on work disability we will gain an understanding of how psychiatric comorbidity influences participation in work and social roles. Finally, we will work with primary care and specialist physicians to determine the best way to diagnose and treat psychiatric comorbidity in persons with chronic immuno-inflammatory diseases. We will partner with primary care physicians, advocacy groups including the Crohns and Colitis Foundation, MS Society of Canada, and Arthritis Society to ensure that our findings are widely disseminated. We will develop information materials for patients and their families regarding the management of stress, depression and anxiety. Anticipated benefits from our population-based research program include better recognition of the magnitude of psychiatric comorbidities and their impact on IBD, MS and RA; development of strategies to manage these comorbidities; and development of generalizable research strategies to evaluate and manage comorbidities in chronic immuno-inflammatory diseases.