Grant: Catalyst Grant: eHealth Innovations

Depression is a highly prevalent and serious chronic condition with tremendous burden on individuals, families, and society. Four million (12%) Canadians experience a major depressive episode in their lifetime. Yet, people experiencing depression delay seeking care and clinicians detect only 50% of cases. This is alarming considering the availability of effective care for depression. Furthermore, routine screening for depression is recommended for adult patients in primary care provided strategies are in place for accurate diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. Collaborative care is practiced at Community Health Centres (CHC) in Canada; however, time constrains of clinicians are causing a lag in uptake of recommended routine screening. To this end, interactive computer-assisted screening for depression (iCAS-D) has the potential to optimize existing practices and improve the quality of care. Diffusion of such effective tools at the system level is anticipated to create capacity to measure mental health and identify trends at the population level. Such generation of an evidence-based loop could improve both frontline healthcare quality and population health. The research team along with clinical, industry, and community partners aim to develop and examine an iCAS-D. While envisioned as multi-phase in nature, the proposed project is focused on the intervention Development in English and Spanish followed by early Evaluation at one CHC site serving diverse communities. A mixed-method approach is planned with usability testing, pilot randomized trial and qualitative interviews with clinicians. The impact of iCAS-D will be evaluated on the provider detection of depression and patient enablement to cope with illness along with visit satisfaction. The results will inform future phases to expand the tool to several sites and language groups followed by a multi-site trial to assess its impact on service use and health outcomes.