Virtual Care Solutions to Support Diverse Youth Living with Pain and their Families During COVID and Beyond
The COVID-19 pandemic is incredibly stressful, and will impact the mental and physical health of youth for the rest of their lives. Pain is one of the most common symptoms that youth experience when dealing with stressful events. This is important because pain can lead to worse mental health in the future. At least two million Canadian youth already have pain that lasts months to years (also called chronic pain).
Youth who live with chronic pain are more likely than their peers to be anxious, depressed, have traumatic stress, and trouble sleeping. They are also more likely to continue to have pain, mental health problems, and misuse drugs as adults. We need to treat pain now to prevent lifelong issues for our youth.
Overnight, it has become necessary to deliver medical and mental health care virtually (like using apps, websites, or therapy over video call). The goal of our project was to find out the best ways to delivery virtual care for youth who are living with pain, and their families and to share that information with families, policy makers, health professionals, and the public. We are sharing this information so that the public, youth, families, healthcare providers, and government policymakers can make the best decisions to treat pain and prevent mental health problems in youth during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the future.
Through funding from the Ontario SPOR SUPPORT Unit, our team conducted collaborative sessions with Black youth living with painful sickle cell disease, Indigenous youth with chronic pain, youth with pain and complex medical needs and developmental disabilities, and their families to ensure best practices were inclusive.
Project Lead
Katie Birnie, PhD RPsych
Project Co-Lead
Melanie Noel, PhD RPsych
Project Co-Lead
Jennifer Stinson, PhD RN
Project Team
Tieghan Killackey, PhD RN
The Hospital for Sick Children
Diane Lorenzetti, PhD
University of Calgary
Maria Pavlova, MSc
University of Calgary
Alexandra Neville, MSc
University of Calgary
Fiona Campbell, MD
The Hospital for Sick Children
Chitra Lalloo, PhD
The Hospital for Sick Children
Paul Arnold, MD PhD
University of Calgary
Isabel Jordan, BSc (Hons)
Squamish, British Columbia
Evie Jordan
Squamish, British Columbia
Justina Marianayagam, BHSc
Northern Ontario School of Medicine
Additional Team
Melanie Kirby-Allen, MD
The Hospital for Sick Children
Hal Siden, MD
University of British Columbia
Tim Oberlander, MD
University of British Columbia
Jaris Swidrovich, PharmD
University of Saskatchewan
Jenna Swidrovich
Saskatchewan
Christine Harris
Ontario
Frank Gavin
Ontario
