Publications by authors named "Janie Houle"

Intersectoral collaborations are recommended as effective strategies to reduce health inequalities. People most affected by health inequalities, as are people living in poverty, remain generally absent from such intersectoral collaborations. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects can be leveraged to better understand how to involve people with lived experience to support both individual and community empowerment.

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Context In Quebec, adult mental health (AMH) first-line teams are mandated to provide psychosocial services to people living with mental health difficulties, including anxiety and mood disorders. Following the establishment of new clinical guidelines in 2017, the duration of interventions was not to exceed 15 sessions, with some exceptions. Objectives The overall aim of the longitudinal component of the Shared Knowledge study was to evaluate the care experience of individuals with an anxiety or depressive disorder receiving a short-term intervention (<15 sessions) by first-line AMH teams, and the evolution of recovery over time.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how pressure to conform to masculine norms affects the mental health of gay, bisexual, trans, Two-Spirit, and queer men and non-binary individuals in Canada.
  • An online survey of 8,977 individuals revealed that over 56% of respondents felt this pressure, particularly among younger, fluid gender-expressing, queer, ethnoracial minority, and trans individuals.
  • The findings show that the pressure to adhere to masculine norms correlates with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and poorer self-rated mental health among these groups.
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Background Remote psychosocial intervention has been used by most health care organizations since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic. However, the rapid introduction of this type of practice generates new methods of intervention that raise many questions, particularly about men who, in general, use face-to-face psychosocial intervention less than women. This documentary research aims to report on current knowledge on remote psychosocial intervention with men.

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Public housing aims to reduce social inequalities by providing affordable dwellings as a social policy. Anchored in an ecological perspective, the paper reports on a multicase photovoice study documenting public housing tenants' perceptions of how their residential environment influences their well-being. This design can provide a deeper understanding of the public housing environment to inform change at a programmatic level.

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Few studies have focused on older public housing tenants' perceptions of physical activity. Greater understanding of how they define, appreciate, and engage in physical activity could lead to better targeted promotion and reduced health inequalities for this subgroup of the population. We conducted 26 walk-along interviews with older public housing tenants in Montreal (Canada).

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Aim: To map integrated and non-integrated self-management support interventions provided by primary care nurses to persons with chronic diseases and common mental disorders and describe their characteristics.

Design: A scoping review.

Data Sources: In April 2020, we conducted searches in several databases (Academic Research Complete, AMED, CINAHL, ERIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus, Emcare, HealthSTAR, Proquest Central) using self-management support, nurse, primary care and their related terms.

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Background: Compassionate communities are rooted in a health promotion approach to palliative care, aiming to support solidarity among community members at the end of life. Hundreds of compassionate communities have been developed internationally in recent years. However, it remains unknown how their implementation on the ground aligns with core strategies of health promotion.

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Background: The integration of a personal recovery-oriented practice in mental health services is an emerging principle in policy planning. Self-management support (SMS) is an intervention promoting recovery that aims at educating patients on the nature of their mental disorder, improving their strategies to manage their day-to-day symptoms, fostering self-efficacy and empowerment, preventing relapse, and promoting well-being. While SMS is well established for chronic physical conditions, there is a lack of evidence to support the implementation of structured SMS programs for common mental disorders, and particularly for anxiety disorders.

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Older public housing tenants experience various factors associated with physical inactivity and are locally dependent on their environment to support their physical activity. A better understanding of the person-environment fit for physical activity could highlight avenues to improve access to physical activity for this subgroup of the population. The aim of this study was to evaluate older public housing tenants' capabilities for physical activity in their residential environment using a socioecological approach.

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Historically, positive psychology research and practice have focused on studying and promoting well-being among individuals. While positive psychology interventions focusing on the well-being of communities and marginalized groups have recently been developed, studies reporting on their nature and characteristics are lacking. The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of community-level positive psychology interventions.

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Support from caregivers is an important element of mental health recovery. However, the mechanisms by which social support influences the recovery of persons with depressive, anxiety, or bipolar disorders are less understood. In this study, we describe the social support mechanisms that influence mental health recovery.

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Background: People in recovery from anxiety, depressive or bipolar disorders can receive both formal (from practitioners) and informal help (from family and friends). These two types of helping relationships have often been studied separately as either therapeutic relationships or social support. Yet, the mechanisms of these two forms of help have not been empirically compared in the context of mental health recovery.

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Background: Transdiagnostic group cognitive-behavioral therapy (tCBT) is a delivery model that could help overcome barriers to large-scale implementation of evidence-based psychotherapy for anxiety disorders. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of combining group tCBT with treatment-as-usual (TAU), compared to TAU, for the treatment of anxiety disorders in community-based mental health care.

Methods: In a multicenter single-blind, two-arm pragmatic superiority randomized trial, we recruited participants aged 18-65 who met DSM-5 criteria for principal diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, or agoraphobia.

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Background: In times of pandemics, social distancing, isolation, and quarantine have precipitated depression, anxiety, and substance misuse. Scientific literature suggests that patients living with mental health problems or illnesses (MHPIs) who interact with peer support workers (PSWs) experience not only the empathy and connectedness that comes from similar life experiences but also feel hope in the possibility of recovery. So far, it is the effect of mental health teams or programs with PSWs that has been evaluated.

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Introduction: It is generally accepted that physical activity promotes healthy aging. Recent studies suggest dance could also benefit cognition and physical health in seniors, but many styles and approaches of dance exist and rigorous designs for intervention studies are still scarce. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of Dance/Movement Training (DMT) to Aerobic Exercise Training (AET) on cognition, physical fitness and health-related quality of life in healthy inactive elderly.

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Background: Patients and families are often referred to as important partners in collaborative mental health care (CMHC). However, how to meaningfully engage them as partners remains unclear. We aimed to identify strategies for engaging patients and families in CMHC programs for depression and anxiety disorders.

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Background: The aim of this study was to identify self-management strategies that can be used in a workplace setting by workers living with depression and anxiety.

Methods: A two-round Delphi study was conducted among three panels of experts: (1) employees living with anxiety or depression (n = 31); (2) managers of employees living with anxiety or depression (n = 12); and (3) researchers with expertise in workplace mental health (n = 15). Participants had to indicate whether each of 60 self-management strategies was applicable at work, and how useful each was for managing their symptoms while working.

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Objective: Self-management support is recognized as an important component of the management of mood and anxiety disorders. The goal of this feasibility study was to evaluate the acceptability, implementation and perceived usefulness of a new comprehensive self-management tool () in four care settings in Quebec, Canada.

Method: Care providers offered the tool to people with difficulties related to mood or anxiety disorders during a 7-month period.

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Background: Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders in community settings, and they are associated with significant psychological distress, functional and social impairment. While cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is the most consistently efficacious psychological treatment for anxiety disorders, barriers preclude widespread implementation of CBT in primary care. Transdiagnostic group CBT (tCBT) focuses on cognitive and behavioural processes and intervention strategies common to different anxiety disorders, and could be a promising alternative to conventional CBT.

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Despite the importance of healthy settings for health promotion, little is known about how neighborhood characteristics affect men's health. The present study aims to explore the associations between perceptions of home and workplace neighborhoods with diverse health outcomes, and to examine mediating mechanisms. A sample of 669 men members of labor unions in Quebec, Canada, completed a questionnaire assessing social and physical aspects of their work and home neighborhoods (the Health-Promoting Neighborhood Questionnaire) as well as subjective and objective health outcomes (perceived health, positive mental health, body mass index) and potential mediators (health behaviors, self-efficacy).

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Background: In Canada, public housing programs are an important part of governmental strategies to fight poverty and public exclusion. The Flash on my neighborhood! project is a four-year multiphase community-based participatory action research strategy currently implemented in six public housing developments (n = 1009 households) across the province of Québec, Canada. The goal is to reduce the mental health disparities faced by these public housing tenants compared to the general population, while identifying which environmental and policy changes are needed to turn public housing settings into healthier environments.

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Objectives The Global Model of Public Mental Health is "global" not only in the sense of having an international perspective, but in regarding service users as actors at all levels of public mental health exerting collective and organized influence on the social determinants of health, in addition to being recipients of care. Having access to appropriate health and mental health care when needed is a fundamental human right. Having a say over the manner in which care is provided, including partnership in decision making in care planning and ongoing care, has gained increasing support among recipients and providers of care.

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Men are generally thought to be less inclined to take care of their health. To date, most studies about men's health have focused on deficits in self-care and difficulties in dealing with this sphere of their life. The present study reframes this perspective, using a salutogenic strengths-based approach and seeking to identify variables that influence men to take care of their health, rather than neglect it.

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