Other Projects
Shalini Lal
Online Referral Services (Processes, Practices, and Tools) to Facilitate Access to Mental Health Care
Project Summary
The current referral system in place for mental health care contributes to delays for individuals to receive services from mental health specialists. The use of technology has the potential of expediting pathways to receiving appropriate mental health care. The aim of this scoping review is to provide an overview of the peer-reviewed, published literature on online referral services that facilitate access to mental health care.
As the extent and nature of the literature on this topic is unknown, the scoping review method will be used to map the available evidence on online referral services in the context of mental health care. Peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2021 that report on the development, implementation, or evaluation of online referral services that promote access to mental health care will be included.
The findings from this scoping review will inform the development and evaluation of online referral services to improve mental health care practice and policy.
This scoping review is currently underway. Stay tuned for the results!
Funders
This project is partially supported through operational funds from the Canada Research Chairs Program awarded to Shalini Lal, PhD. Additional support is provided through the Mitacs Accelerate program. If you would like to further support the advancement of research pertaining to online referral services for mental health care, contact us at: ymhtechlab@gmail.com.
Contact person
Shalini Lal, Ph.D., M.Sc., B.Sc.O.T. (Reg.QC)
Email: ymhtechlab@gmail.com
The Use of Technology to Transform the Delivery of Eating Disorder Treatments Within the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review
Project Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected the lives of those with eating disorders in a variety of ways, including the disruption of traditional face-to-face service delivery. In order to mitigate these negative effects, technology has been increasingly used in various clinical settings. Consequently, the pandemic has sparked a movement towards the adoption of more technologies for the delivery of eating disorder services, and will likely have long-term impacts on service delivery.
This scoping review examines the extent to which technology has been used to transform the delivery of eating disorder treatments in response to physical distancing measures implemented by international governments in response to COVID-19. With regard to this change in service delivery, the perspectives of service providers, caregivers, and individuals with eating disorders will be explored through this study as well.
Despite the growing number of works on the topic of eating disorder service-delivery transformations during the COVID-19 pandemic, these findings have yet to be synthesized. Accordingly, a scoping review method will be used. Articles published between January 2020 and March 2021 in this research area will be included.
We are in the initial steps of this scoping review - watch this space for more updates!
Funders
This project is partially supported through operational funds from the Canada Research Chairs Program awarded to Shalini Lal, PhD. There is no specific grant funding for this project. If you would like to further support the advancement of research on the use of technology for the delivery of eating disorder treatments, contact us at: ymhtechlab@gmail.com.
Contact person
Shalini Lal, Ph.D., M.Sc., B.Sc.O.T. (Reg.QC)
Email: ymhtechlab@gmail.com
Youth Mental Health and Technology Lab
Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM)
Pavillion S 850, Rue St-Denis, Bureau S03.328
Montréal (Québec) H2X 0A9
Email: ymhtechlab@gmail.com