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What Matters Most to Young Immigrants Living with Mental Health Concerns: A Community Priority Setting in Alberta, Canada Passed

Tuesday May 14, 2024 15:09 - 15:21 G2

Moderator: Ewa-Lena Bratt
Presenter: Maria J. Santana

Track: Children and Youth

Introduction/background: Frequent studies have indicated that numerous mental health (MH) issues develop during an early age, and they can evolve into mental disorders. These disorders affect about 1 in 4 Canadian youth. Youth make up 19.2% of the Canadian population. Even more so according to Stats Canada (2016), 37.5% of these Canadian youth belong to immigrant families. With an immigrant identity, the experience of displacement, trauma, stigma, and racism can be rampant within this community. Methods:  A qualitative patient-oriented research project that identifies priorities of immigrant youth living with MH concerns in Alberta, Canada. Young Immigrants aged 15 to 25 years old were recruited. We collected questions related to what matters to their MH. Then, these questions were thematically combined and then posed via focus groups to garner their MH priorities. EDI: The youth self-identified as immigrants. We had a diversity in age group, racial/ ethnic background, language, and mental health experiences. This entire study was conducted based on the notion to be inclusive to immigrant youth voices, garner mental health experiences with diverse participants, and have an equitable platform to reach out to this underserved cohort. Results and analysis: Thirteen focus groups with urban and rural Albertans as well as after conducting a Nominal Group Technique, the most chosen questions ranked by the youth included: how MH can be improved, how MH affects education and job opportunities, stigma and how to deal with worsening MH challenges were prioritized. Conclusions: The outcome of this study will be beneficial for policy makers and health decision makers to understand what the MH needs are of immigrant youth. The results of this study can also foster more education on cultural competency and create specified mental health supports for immigrant youth.  

Language

English

Seminar type

Pre-recorded + On-site

Lecture type

Orals

Conference

GCPCC

Authors

Farwa Naqvi, Maria Jose Santana

Lecturers

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Ewa-Lena Bratt Moderator

Professor
Sahlgrenska academy, University of Gothenburg

Ewa-Lena Bratt is a professor in nursing, specializing in transitions within healthcare. She is a registered nurse with specialized training in healthcare for children and adolescents, with over 30 years of experience in pediatric healthcare, particularly focusing on children and youth with heart defects.

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Maria J. Santana Presenter

Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

Dr. Maria J. Santana is a health services researcher, patient and family-centred care scientist, Professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.

Dr. Santana has received training in clinical pharmacy (BPharm, MPharm, London School of Pharmacy, UK, Universidad La Laguna, Spain), public health and clinical epidemiology (PhD, University of Alberta, Canada).

She is the provincial director, Patient Engagement for the Alberta Strategy for Patient-oriented Research (https://absporu.ca/patient-engagement-2/ ). She is the principal investigator for the Person-centred Care Research Team, https://cumming.ucalgary.ca/research/person-centred-care and the academic director of the Patient and Community Engagement in Research, PaCER, https://www.ucalgary.ca/patient-community-engagement-research .

In 2023, she received the President Award by the International Society for Quality of Life Research. Recently, she has collaborated in three major international initiatives: World Health Organization - Patient Engagement: Technical Series on Safer Primary Care; Pan-American Health Organization – World Hypertension League Hypertension Monitoring and Evaluation Framework to aid Hypertension Control Programs; and the International Consortium for Health Outcome Measurement Adult Diabetes. She is a scientific advisor for the Gothenburg Person-centred Centre, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.