Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Substance use disorders are highly prevalent and disabling mental health conditions. Cognitive challenges contribute substantially to the personal and societal impact of substance use disorders but are rarely targeted directly in treatment. Cognitive interventions represent a promising opportunity to address these common cognitive challenges; however, the evidence base for these interventions has many limitations. A recent global effort identified research priorities for cognitive intervention research in substance use disorder; however, this initiative did not incorporate the perspectives of knowledge users, including clinicians, leaders, and those with lived expertise. The proposed planning grant aims to bring together a diverse group of researchers, clinicians and other service providers, clinical decision makers, and knowledge users with lived and living experience of substance use disorder. We will hold virtual meetings with each knowledge user type, including those with lived expertise of substance use disorder (N=30; youth, adults, and family members) as well as service providers and clinical decision-makers in Canada (N=20). These meetings will present the results of research in this area and solicit feedback regarding priorities for substance use disorder, with a focus on the Canadian context. Feedback will also be requested from knowledge users via survey. We will then disseminate these knowledge user informed research priorities to academic, clinical, and patient audiences, and develop and submit a full-scale grant application for an initial investigation aimed at one of the identified priorities, leveraging this newly created national network. This grant is responsive to a key evidence gap and poised to advance knowledge in this area, with an ultimate goal to alleviate the pressure on the Canadian healthcare system through validation of effective cognitive interventions for substance use disorder.