Meet Holly, one of our soon to be Masters Students! She has joined us to complete a project with the IWK Summer Studentship Research Program and our lab this summer. Holly recently graduated from a Bachelor of Science with an honours in psychology at Dalhousie University and will join our team at the end of May.

Holly's project for her Summer Studentship will analyze how the mental health of children is connected to the mental health of their parents in a unique sample of families living with 22q11DS. Her project will familiarize her with the families that she will work with during her Master’s and get to know their needs and wishes. She will be trained in using survey platforms and get exposed to analyses that will prepare her well for her Master’s thesis project as well as her career path in mental health. She would like to thank the IWK Research Services Office for their generous grant that will enable her to complete her studentship project with the PROSIT Lab.

We are excited to announce that one of our colleagues, Silvia Marin-Dragu, has successfully defended her master's thesis in the Psychiatry Research Program at Dalhousie University.

Her thesis, titled The impact of smartphone use and sleep duration on youth mental health, examined these associations through an innovative mobile sensing app developed by PROSIT Lab. The results of this research project highlight the importance of sleep on youth mental well-being and underscore the detrimental effect of excessive smartphone use.

Silvia would like to thank the participants who made her work possible, as well as mentor Dr. Sandra Meier, and committee members Dr. Penny Corkum and Dr. Alexa Bagnell.

This fall, Silvia will be starting the Ph.D. Clinical Psychology Program at Dalhousie, co-supervised by Dr. Sandra Meier and Dr. Jill Chorney. Her research will centre around using technology to enhance mental health interventions. We are beyond thrilled by Silvia's success and look forward to seeing what her bright future holds.

Meet Eva, one of our new research assistants! She has joined us to complete a project with the IWK Summer Studentship Research Program and our lab this summer. Eva is going into her fourth year of her undergrad at Dalhousie University with an honours in psychology. She is currently working alongside other lab members to support our Social Media study.

Eva's project for her Summer Studentship will analyze the motives of social media use in youth as well as how cyberbullying may play into that association. She would like to thank the IWK Research Services Office for their generous grant that will enable her to complete her studentship project with the PROSIT Lab.

Cognitive behavioural therapy is the most effective treatment for anxiety disorders in youth, but many patients do not respond well enough. To decide if cognitive behavioural therapy is working well for their patient or other treatment options should be considered, clinicians often rely on subjective data. However, clinical decision-making based on such subjective data is difficult; hence, there is a real need to identify better and more objective markers of clinical response. 

Our team is very grateful and humbled to announce that we have received a second grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research! Our study focuses on mobile sensing to improve the standard and treatment of anxiety disorders in youth. We aim to test if mobile sensing data predict daily anxiety symptoms over time, assess if combining these data with subjective data can improve clinical prediction accuracy, and develop actionable feedback loops. Such an actionable clinical monitoring tool will major clinical benefit and empower youth to get actively involved in their care.

Our team is proud to announce that we have received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for our new study to improve the care of individuals with 22q11 deletion syndrome.

Our proposed research study uses a multidisciplinary approach to assess the socioeconomic impact of the 22q11 deletion syndrome and test the effects of an easy-to-access online coaching intervention designed to help reduce this impact for families.

To learn more about the 22q11 initiative and details of our study, click the image above!