The JDRF Canada – Brain Canada Addressing Mental Health in Type 1 Diabetes Team Grants provide up to $250,000 over two years to fund the development and testing of three sustainable, scalable projects which aim to improve support for people in Canada who live with T1D and are affected by mental health disorders.
Dr. Tricia Tang, PhD
Project: Using a virtual care platform to deliver peer-led mental health support to rural and remote communities in BC: A randomized wait-list controlled trial of the REACHOUT intervention
Living with a chronic illness like diabetes is hard. As a result of the burden of diabetes management, people with T1D are at an increased risk of developing mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and diabetes distress, a clinically validated term describing the powerlessness, stress, guilt, relentless worry, and denial that comes with living with diabetes and the burden of self-management. We know that people with T1D who develop mental health disorders, particularly depression and diabetes distress, have a lower quality of life, have worse glycemic control (i.e., higher HbA1c), measure blood glucose less often, suffer more frequent/severe hypoglycemia and diabetic ketoacidosis episodes, and are admitted to the hospital more frequently. Conversely, resilience, empowerment, a good support network, and wellness are linked with high quality of life and health outcomes in people with T1D.
Mental health is rarely a central aspect of day-to-day diabetes management and concerns often remain unidentified or unaddressed until they become serious and challenging to manage. Although mental health interventions are known to improve quality of life and outcomes for some people with diabetes, few are regularly implemented in standard care.
Dr. Tang and her team at the University of British Columbia will use a virtual care platform to deliver peer-led mental health support to rural and remote communities in BC, through an intervention called REACHOUT, created with support from a previous JDRF grant.
Given the shortage of mental health professionals who are trained in T1D, adults living in rural and remote settings experience the greatest challenge accessing the services they need. This gap in health care is why BC has identified “mental health care” and “rural and remote health care services” as two of the five provincial health care priorities. Dr. Tang’s team will seek to address three challenges of BC’s diabetes care: the availability, affordability, and accessibility of mental health support for adults with T1D living in settings with limited resources.
Peer support has been demonstrated to be a low-cost and viable approach to long-term self-management support. In addition, interventions that use technology (e.g., digital health platforms) have been found to improve mental and emotional health. As such, models that draw on both peer support and digital health strategies may prove promising in reducing health care disparities.
REACHOUT is a Mobile App developed in collaboration with adults with T1D, clinical psychologists, biomedical engineers, behavioural scientists, and rural health experts. REACHOUT uses digital health technology to “drive” mental health support to people living with T1D in the greatest need. If successful, this innovative approach that seeks to reach the “hard-to-reach” can be adapted for kids, teens, adolescents, and young adults with T1D in BC and across Canada.
Congratulations to Dr. Tang on this wonderful achievement!
The JDRF Canada – Brain Canada Addressing Mental Health in Type 1 Diabetes Team Grants have been made possible by the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF), an innovative arrangement between the Government of Canada (through Health Canada) and Brain Canada, and JDRF Canada.
This story was originally seen on JDRF News