Our Work
Mental health is a key priority for people receiving hemodialysis that must be addressed to improve care.
Mind the Gap is a research program that aims to optimize person-centred mental health care to improve patient experience and quality of care in hemodialysis.
The issue
Adults receiving hemodialysis self-reported mental health symptoms as being linked to adverse outcomes over the general population. The mental health needs is rising and the support for hemodialysis individuals is poor. Closing mental health care gaps is a priority in hemodialysis.
Addressing the problem
The Triple I project identified the Top 10 Challenges in In-Centre Hemodialysis Care. Addressing access to mental health care is a priority. Our approach focuses on coping with hemodialysis and identifying individualized, accessible, and culturally-sensitive supports, with effective implementation strategies. To address these issues, our research aims to provide mental health services that are available, appropriate and accessible, potentially reducing mental health inequities for Indigenous individuals receiving hemodialysis.
Objectives
By mobilizing research-generated knowledge and engaging patient partners at all stages, we will optimize person-centred mental health care, leading to improvements in mental health, patient experience, and quality of hemodialysis care.
Our objectives:
Key Objective 1: Develop an accessible inventory of all mental health supports available to Canadians on hemodialysis.
Key Objective 2: Identify culturally sensitive, individualized approaches to mental health care for people on hemodialysis.
Key Objective 3: Informed by Objectives 1 and 2, develop, implement and evaluate optimal evidence-based mental health support strategies for Canadians on hemodialysis.
Deliverables – Objective 1
Deliverables:
- Environmental scanning is the process of gathering information about events and their relationships within an internal and external environment. The basic purpose of environmental scanning is to help determine the future directions.
- We will perform a cross-Canada environmental scan to develop online inventories for all provinces and territories of “resources for coping with and adjusting to dialysis”. We will discuss all inventories with patient partners, allied health professionals and clinicians to identify gaps in the inventories.
We will create freely available, online inventories of resources. They will be provided on our website: www.healthyqol.com/kidney and linked to www.betterkidneycare.ca. These resources will be available to clinicians and people receiving dialysis and resources will be updated throughout the project and after.
- We will expand on our qualitative work using focus groups/interviews, and following OCAP principles, seek the wisdom of Indigenous stakeholders, including patients and healthcare workers, to identify approaches and supports needed for culturally-appropriate care.
Deliverables – Objective 2
Deliverables:
- We will identify key targets, components, priorities, and preferences for individualized mental health support strategies for Canadians on hemodialysis using a priority setting exercise.
- We will identify challenges to mental health care for Indigenous people on hemodialysis.
Deliverables – Objective 3
Deliverables:
- We will develop an intervention addressing key priorities identified in Objective 1 and 2 in the hemodialysis context. We will tailor our implementation strategies in Manitoba and Nova Scotia.
- We will leverage Kidney Foundation of Canada (KFOC)-funded research tailoring a pathway for mental health care in dialysis in Alberta, and move towards provincial implementation and evaluation. As part of Mind the Gap, we will implement and evaluate the pathway in dialysis sites in Alberta.
Publications & Presentations
Mind the Gap project poster
Presented at the 2024 Can-SOLVE CKD Network Annual Meeting
Click to view full size poster
Mind the Gap project poster
Presented at the 2023 Can-SOLVE CKD Network Annual Meeting
Click to view full size poster
