Dr. Alain Vanasse is a recipient of the Innovation Québec – Janssen Partnership. Dr. Vanasse is the scientific director at the Unité de soutien SRAP du Québec, a professor at the Université de Sherbrooke’s family medicine and emergency medicine department, and the director of the CHUS de l’Estrie’s PRIMUS research group.
Dr. Vanasse’s proposed project will look at improving practices based on empirical results in real-world settings related to epidemiology, care trajectories and treatment effectiveness for patients with schizophrenia in Quebec.
The Innovation Québec – Janssen Partnership is a public-private partnership program between Janssen and the Ministère de l’Économie et de l’Innovation (MEI), in collaboration with the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS) and the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS).
Context
Schizophrenia affects approximately 1% of the Canadian population. It is a serious and complex disease with a disproportionate impact on the lives of patients and the health care system. Hospitalization rates for people with schizophrenia are very high, and mortality rates are three times higher than among the general population. Along with individual and clinical factors, care trajectories and the effectiveness of antipsychotic treatments are key determinants of patient outcomes.
The project
The aim of this project is to generate new real-world knowledge about schizophrenia in Quebec to promote informed decision-making and improved mental health practices.
1) An epidemiological portrait of the entire population with schizophrenia in Quebec (90,000 individuals) will be produced, including incidence, prevalence, rates of mortality, emergency room visits and hospitalization.
2) Analyses will also examine pre-diagnosis care trajectories to identify opportunities for early intervention. They will also look at care trajectories in the years following diagnosis to identify social and economic inequalities in the treatment of schizophrenia.
3) Finally, the analyses will compare the efficacy and safety of different antipsychotic treatments as well as patient adherence to these treatments.
Expected impact
The study will produce empirical information on the disease and the social and economic inequalities observed in Quebec today. This information will be of great value to decision-makers in setting priorities and allocating adequate and appropriate resources to improve the care and services provided to the Quebec population. Describing the care trajectories of schizophrenia patients also means describing their history to characterize the “schizophrenia prodrome” more clearly and respond as early as possible, and to evaluate the health care system’s response to diagnosed patients and identify optimal personalized care trajectories.
The research team will work with its knowledge-user partners, from a clinical and organizational perspective, with a focus on knowledge transfer.