Grant: Project Grant

Background: The use of healthcare by Inuit (and other Indigenous groups in Canada) are complicated by negative experiences with the healthcare system. There is an urgent need to improve opportunities for Inuit to use healthcare. Shared decision making (SDM) is a strategy that promotes client participation in health decisions and leads to improved health outcomes for clients. SDM has strong potential to facilitate better healthcare participation by Inuit with healthcare providers. The goal of our study is to develop and test SDM education for healthcare providers who work with Inuit. Methods: Our team of Inuit-led and-service providers and researchers from Ontario and Nunavut will work together ("the Team). We will use a collaborative research approach and we will be guided by Inuit societal values in our work. Our plan is to use mixed research methods to do a research study. First, we will use interviews to understand what healthcare providers need to learn so that they are able to support Inuit clients in health decisions. Then, our Team will work together to develop SDM education for health care providers. We will ask some health care provider volunteers to try out the training so that we can learn how to make the SDM education most useful to health care providers. Next, we will invite 20-30 healthcare providers to do the SDM education. We will use surveys and interviews to assess whether the SDM education is helpful for these healthcare providers for making health decisions with Inuit clients. We will also use surveys to ask Inuit clients about their experience with healthcare providers who have done the SDM education. Finally, we will assess how we worked together as a Team to do our study. Results: In our study we expect to develop and test SDM education for healthcare providers. We will share our experiences and will be an example for other teams who want to work together to do a research study.