What the (?!@#) Happened? Creative Strategies to Engage Youth in a First Episode Program: Interactive Psychosis Workbook.
Poster A39, Monday, October 8, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm, Essex Ballroom
Josie Swan-Merrison1, Karen McCauley1, Michael MacKinley1, Chelsea Barden3, Hunain Khan2, Hamza Khan4, Lena Palaniyappan1,2; 1London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada, 2University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, 3Parkwood Institute, London, Ontario, Canada, 4University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Objectives: Emerging literature has emphasized the importance of creating youth friendly environments as an integral component of early intervention in first episode psychosis. To this end, the Prevention and Early Intervention Program for Psychosis (PEPP), in London Ont, Canada, has developed an interactive workbook for clients to promote engagement with the treatment team and to empower youth to be active agents of their care. Methods: An interdisciplinary development team of clinic staff was formed, and areas of focus were derived through a consensus procedure to determine critical areas of care. An approach utilising both infographics and interactive task-completion was used to create a workbook for daily use in the Early Intervention setting. We describe the major elements of this workbook in the results section below and display samples for the audience. Results: The workbook is comprised of the following chapters: Mental health, Health behaviors, Vocational skills, and Interpersonal skills. At present, we are planning to conduct pre-launch focus groups to determine the attitudes and beliefs clients hold over the utility and accessibility of information in the workbook. We are also planning to make this booklet available for other first episode teams, in an editable format for local adaptation. Conclusion: While challenging, creating a youth friendly service within a hospital environment must be considered when developing early intervention programs. This interactive workbook could become a valuable tool to encourage participation among early psychosis patients’ and will provide invaluable health information for the journey towards recovery.
Topic Area: First Episode Psychosis