A University of Alberta nursing researcher is working to change the way people with schizophrenia and other chronic mental health conditions in Canada are cared for at the end of their lives.
One in five Canadians experiences a mental health issue in their lifetime and yet there is little focus on these conditions in palliative care, according to new research from Tanya Park, associate professor in the Faculty of Nursing.
"If you have schizophrenia (or any other chronic mental health condition), it carries with you your whole life, and it really just struck me that at the end of your life, this thing that has dominated your life is now just dismissed," Park says. "Once you go to palliative care, the focus switches to whatever you are there for."
For the study, Park interviewed mental health professionals about how palliative care might help their patients, building on a previous study on palliative care professionals' knowledge of mental health. She discovered that the two groups know little about each other's area of expertise.
Park is now testing an online cross-disciplinary educational tool to teach palliative care professionals more about mental health. Her ultimate research goal is to develop and test a new model of palliative care for patients with chronic mental health conditions.
