TEAM NEWS

A large scale SPIN Cohort study led by SPIN Co-Director Linda Kwakkenbos was recently accepted for publication in Rheumatology. The study aimed to assess fatigue compared to general population data and identify associated sociodemographic, lifestyle and SSc disease factors. The team found that fatigue is common in scleroderma and scores were substantially higher than the general public and is associated with many lifestyle and disease factors. Read here for more information on this study.

SPIN studied Raynaud’s phenomenon severity ratings from 2243 SPIN Cohort participants (20,233 ratings) and mapped the association of ambient temperature and symptom severity. The study was over 65 times larger than the largest previous study on the topic and provided new insights on how temperature may influence the experience of living with Raynaud’s phenomenon. For more information on this study, click here.

A cross-sectional study led by team member Dr. Claire Adams was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Scleroderma and Related Disorders. The study investigated changes in work status and adequacy of financial resources among people with systemic sclerosis during COVID-19. The team found that work status and financial wellbeing did not change substantively among people with systemic sclerosis during the pandemic, however, flexible work policies may support people with systemic sclerosis to commence and continue to work. Read more here.

We are excited to share that the COVID-19 LSR team was awarded a 2-year funding ($233,000) by CIHR for “Recovering from the COVID-19 Pandemic, Informing Future Public Health Crises, and Building Global Evidence Base for Mental Health Research: A Systematic Review of COVID-19 related Mental Health.” This grant will allow our team to integrate new evidence into our comparison prior to and during COVID-19, evaluate mental health symptom trajectories across the pandemic, and conduct a meta-research review of COVID-19 mental health research to identify strengths and weaknesses in planning for ongoing mental health surveillance and future disaster preparedness. 

A meta-analysis of primary studies employing the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) led by Marc Parsons and supported by DEPRESSD team members was published in Scientific Reports. Many studies use the GDS-15 to estimate depression prevalence. The team compared prevalence based on the GDS-15 to a gold-standard diagnostic test of depression. We found that the most used GDS-15 cutoff overestimated depression prevalence substantially and that the cutoff that most closely matched true prevalence provided estimates which were too heterogeneous to be useful in practice. For more information on this study, click here.

Dr. Brett Thombs (www.thombsresearchteam.ca/) of McGill University and the Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN; www.spinsclero.com), is looking

for a candidate to fill a full-time Research Coordinator position within our team at the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. To apply: Applicants should send (1) a cover letter explaining their interest in the position, (2) a curriculum vitae, (3) an unofficial transcript, and (4) an English writing sample and, if possible, an additional writing sample in French, to Marie-Eve Carrier at carrier.marie.eve@gmail.com. Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. Read more about this position here.

SPIN has been awarded the CIHR Inclusive Research Prize for Patient Engagement! This award will support our ongoing efforts to advance patient engagement in health research.

Marie-Eve was recently named by the SPIN’s Steering Committee as a Co-Director of SPIN. For over 10 years, Marie-Eve has coordinated numerous SPIN projects and represented the SPIN team in the scleroderma community. Her new role will support her outreach with community partners and involve her in leadership decisions. 

Tiffany is currently leading a study to develop a tool, jointly with researchers, health care providers, and patients, to map sources of pain in SSc, determine patterns of pain from different sources, and understand pain management experiences. The team will then administer the final version of the tool to participants in the SPIN Cohort. To access the protocol for this study, click here. 

Tiffany led 2 cross-sectional SPIN Cohort studies which identified sociodemographic and disease-related factors associated with satisfaction with social roles and activities and physical function in SSc. Multiple factors were associated to both outcomes. The team found that physical function was impaired for many individuals with SSc, but this did not appear to translate to lower satisfaction with social roles and activities. For more information, click here (social functioning), and here (physical functioning). 

A cross-sectional SPIN Cohort study led by Marieke Neyer was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. The study aimed to evaluate the association between resilience and patient-reported somatic (fatigue, pain, sleep) and mental health (anxiety, depression) outcomes in people with systemic sclerosis. The team found that, in general, people with lower resilience reported worse mental health and somatic symptoms, and greater disease severity, except for one group of people who reported high resilience and positive mental health, despite high disease severity, fatigue, pain and sleep disturbance. For more information on this study, click here.

A SPIN-COVID-19 Cohort study led by team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar, which was recently published in The Lancet Rheumatology, found that 80% of participants used telehealth at least some of the time during the pandemic and that, post-pandemic, over 50% have continued to use at least some telehealth for their scleroderma care. An exception was in France, where only 35% received telehealth care in the pandemic and 20% post-pandemic. Check out the full article here.

A meta-research review led by Claire Adams and with current and former SPIN team members  Elsa-Lynn Nassar, Julia Nordlund, Cassidy Dal Santo, Danielle Rice, and Vanessa Cook, was recently published in The Lancet Rheumatology. The review aimed to evaluate the proportion of studies published in high-impact rheumatology journals that (i) reported whether they engaged people with lived experience and (ii) actually engaged people with lived experience. The team found 9% of studies included in the review reported engaging people with lived experience, and 20% engaged people with lived experience but did not report this in their articles. It is estimated that, overall, 29% to 44% of included studies might have engaged people with lived experience, indicating engagement of people with lived experience in rheumatology research is low. For more information on this study please click here.

An individual-patient data meta-analysis led by Nadia González Domínguez was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. The study aimed to estimate the minimal detectable difference of the 15-item geriatric depression scale (GDS-15). The team found that this estimate was around 3.81 points for the highest confidence level used, and was influenced by the proportion of people with major depression in a given study. Read more here.

A cross-sectional SPIN Cohort study led by Afra Alkan was recently accepted for publication in Arthritis Care & Research. The study aimed to assess minimal detectable changes (MDCs) of the Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index, Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System-29 Profile version 2.0 domains, and Patient Health Questionnaire-8 in Systemic Sclerosis, as well as compare MDC estimates by age, sex, and SSc subtype. The team found that MDC95 estimates were not materially different across subgroups. For more information on this study, click here.

We are excited to share that Sophie Hu has been awarded a Master’s scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). This award will help support her training with our team as she pursues her Master’s program in Epidemiology. Congratulations Sophie! 

Angelina Dimopoulos and Chloë Ethier van Blokland recently joined the SPIN team as volunteers. Angelina is a third-year psychology student at McGill University. She is committed to pursuing graduate studies and making a positive impact in the field of psychology. Chloë completed her B.Sc. degree with a major in Psychology and minor in Gender, Sexuality, Feminism and Social Justice Studies at McGill this spring. She hopes to focus on issues related to women's health and social justice in her career. Read more about Angelina and Chloë. 

We are excited to share that Amina Tasleem, our research assistant for the DEPRESSD project, has been admitted to Harvard University’s MPH program in Health Management. Amina joined the team in 2020 as an undergraduate honors thesis student at McGill University and is currently working on the DEPRESSD and COVID-19 LSR project. She will join the program in the Fall of 2024. Congratulations, Amina! 

We are happy to share that Ying (Sheryl) Sun, who has been a Research Project Coordinator of our DEPRESSD and the COVID-19 LSR for the past 6 years, has been admitted to Johns Hopkins’ PhD program in Epidemiology for Fall 2024, in the Clinical Trials and Evidence Synthesis track. Congratulations, Sheryl!

Dr. Yin Wu, Research Associate with the DEPRESSD, has been part of the team since 2018. She recently started a new position as a Research Professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), School of Public Health. SJTU is one of the top few universities in China, and their School of Public Health is also highly respected. Although Yin will no longer be part of the day-to-day work of the team, she will remain a member of the DEPRESSD Steering Committee, continue to play a key role in the DEPRESSD Project and collaborate as an independent professor. Congrats Yin!

We’re happy to share that Diana Jiang has been admitted to McGill’s MA program in Educational Psychology (Human Development). Diana joined the DEPRESSD team as a research assistant in November 2020 and has worked on several COVID-19 LSR projects. She’ll start her program in September 2024. Congratulations Diana!

We are excited to share that Monica D’Onofrio (SPIN research assistant) has been awarded a Master’s scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). This award will help support her training with our team as she will begin her Master’s program in Epidemiology in the Fall of 2024. Congratulations Monica!

We are excited to share that Tiffany Dal Santo has been admitted to Concordia’s MA program in Psychology (Research and Clinical Training Option). Tiffany joined the DEPRESSD team in 2020 as undergraduate honours thesis student and is currently working with the SPIN team as a master’s student in psychiatry. She will begin the program in September 2024. Congratulations, Tiffany!

We are happy to share that Yutong Wang, who is a key member of our COVID-19 LSR project, has recently been admitted to McGill's PhD program in Epidemiology. Starting from September 2024, Yutong will continue to be a part of the team for the next several years, working with the DEPRESSD Team on individual participant data meta-analyses and also with the SPIN Team on primary data work. Congratulations, Yutong!

SPIN was awarded $25,000 from Skin Canada to form a team of people with scleroderma and researchers from Canada, the United States, and France to form a team to develop research on itch in scleroderma. Itch is a critical but understudied problem in scleroderma. Thanks to Tiffany Dal Santo for her work in putting together the successful grant proposal!

Dr. Thombs was quoted in a Washington Post article on menopause and depression. Similar to our team’s work, the article scrutinizes evidence and concludes that the menopause depression link is not likely much greater than for other health conditions that people experience. Read the full article here.

Congratulations to Brett who received the Alex Leighton Award from the Canadian Association of Psychiatric Epidemiology (CAPE) and the Canadian Psychiatry Association (CPA) for his work in mental health epidemiology: https://www.cpa-apc.org/awards/annual-collaborative-awards/. He will be presented with the award at November’s CPA/CAPE meeting.

Monica has been admitted to McGill’s MSc program in Epidemiology and will continue to work with the SPIN team. Monica will start her program in September 2024. Congratulations, Monica!

Elsa received a travel award from FRQS-UNITÉ to present her work at the Scleroderma World Congress in Prague. Congratulations Elsa!

Meira Golberg joined the SPIN and DEPRESSD teams as a full-time Biostatistician in January 2024. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Biology at McGill University and Master of Mathematics in Biostatistics at the University of Waterloo. Meira has worked on a wide range of projects focused on measuring predictors of cognition, physical and mental well-being, mental health and unmet healthcare needs. She will be supporting the SPIN and DEPRESSD teams in their methodologic aims and associated data analyses. Read more about Meira here.

Dr. Jieting (Jenny) Zhang joined the DEPRESSD team as a visiting professor in October. She is an associate professor in School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, China. Her research interests include the influence of childhood adversity on mental health and  mindfulness-based interventions. Read more about Jenny here.

Dr. Yin Wu and the team reviewed data contribution to the four depression screening tool accuracy individual participant data meta-analyses (IPDMAs). We found that 65% of 456 eligible studies contributed data overall; data contribution was associated with multiple characteristics of primary studies. Over 80% of 161 non-contributions were because authors were unreachable or data were unavailable. This was the largest study to investigate data contribution to IPDMAs that has examined characteristics of eligible studies and the first in the field of diagnostic test accuracy, which may support future research to promote data contribution to IPDMAs. Read more about the publication here: link.

We are excited to share that Claire Adams (SPIN postdoctoral fellow) has been awarded a prestigious Banting Fellowship for her project “Patient Engagement in Health Research: Enhancing Knowledge and Practice”. In addition, she was recently awarded a CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship. Claire will work to improve patient engagement in SPIN and in applied health research more broadly. The fellowships were awarded based on her research excellence and leadership, the quality of the proposed project, and research environment. Congratulations Claire!

Drs Thombs and Rice, along with colleagues Dr. Sarah Markham and Dr. Roy Ziegelstein, were commissioned by the BMJ to discuss new screening recommendations from the United States Preventive Services Task Force. See the editorial here: LINK.

Team members Dr. Yin Wu (moderator), Letong Li, Kexin Li and Diana Jiang (co-presenters) recently presented their symposium titled “Mental Health Intervention Effects in the General Population and Among Youth and Older Adults to Inform Management Strategies During and Post-COVID-19: Evidence from an Ongoing Living Systematic Review” at the 2023 CPA convention in Toronto. Kexin also presented her poster on loneliness among older adults during COVID-19. Congratulations to the team!

A cross-sectional study led by team member Sabrina Provencher was recently published in the Journal of Scleroderma and Related Disorders. The study aimed to determine if informational and support needs of recently diagnosed individuals with systemic sclerosis differ from people diagnosed for longer periods of time. The team found that people with systemic sclerosis have a wide range of information and support needs, regardless of their disease duration, but people with recent diagnoses have greater needs. For more information about the study, please click here!

Elsa-Lynn Nassar recently won the Me2 Majumdar Award for Best Poster at the Knowledge Translation Summer Institute 2023, jointly organized by KT Canada and the University of Ottawa's School of Epidemiology and Public Health! Her poster presented an overview of SPIN's living systematic review of knowledge translation tools for disseminating research results to patients.

Gabriel joined the DEPRESSD team as a Mitacs research intern in June 2023. She majors in global health at the University of Hong Kong, where she has worked with various research teams. Gabriel’s research interests include psychiatric epidemiology and Mendelian randomization. Read more about Gabriel here.

Daniel Henao-Díaz joined the DEPRESSD team as a Mitacs intern in June 2023. He has worked as a physician after receiving his medical degree from the University of Caldas (Colombia) in 2017. Currently, Daniel is studying mathematics and physics education at the Catholic University of Manizales (Colombia). Learn more about Daniel here.

Dr. Thombs and the SPIN team were featured in an article published in The Montrealer. The article discussed SPIN team’s research, highlighting the SPIN-HAND program that helped to improve the hand function for Scleroderma patients. Read more here.

A cross-sectional meta-research study led by Tiffany Dal Santo was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. The study aimed to assess how well methods and results of meta-research studies on reporting guideline adherence were themselves reported. The team found that only a small proportion of included studies provided a fully replicable explanation of how they coded the adherence ratings and completely reported individual study results. For more information on this study, click here!

Team member Sabrina Provencher was admitted to the Université de Montréal’s Doctor of Medicine program beginning in the fall of 2023. Sabrina completed her second undergraduate honours thesis under the supervision of Dr. Brett Thombs looking at factors associated with anxiety in people with systemic sclerosis. Her Master’s of Psychiatry thesis focuses on the reduction of a scale that measures self-efficacy in support group leaders.  Congrats Sabrina! 

We are excited to share that Maria Gagarine has been admitted to the University of Toronto's Doctor of Medicine program beginning in the fall of 2023. Maria joined SPIN in 2020 during her Master's degree in Public Health at McGill, leading the oral health research project. She hopes to continue working in the scleroderma field as a tribute to her mom who had scleroderma. Congratulations, Maria!

Brienne Tougas joined the DEPRESSD team as a research assistant in May 2023. She is currently studying psychology at McGill, where she gained research experience in education and mental health. Brienne wants to pursue a doctoral degree in psychology and conduct research on how traumatic life events can impact mental health and well-being, particularly in youth. Read more about Brienne here.

Monica D’Onofrio joined the DEPRESSD team in April as a summer Research Assistant. She completed her BSc in Physiology at McGill in December, where she worked in cancer research. She’s interested in mental health and aims to pursue a degree in clinical psychology. Read more about Monica here.

Brooke Levis, Research Associate with the DEPRESSD and SPIN teams, has been part of the Thombs Research Team since 2009. She recently started a new position as the Director of Epidemiology at Epividian, a healthcare analytics and software company that does pharmacoepidemiological research to improve the lives of people with HIV. Although she will no longer be part of the day-to-day work of the team, she will remain a member of the DEPRESSD Steering Committee. Congrats Brooke!

A cross-sectional study led by team member Marieke Neyer was recently published in Arthritis Care and Research. The study aimed to examine the validity, reliability, and differential item functioning of the English and French versions of the 10-Item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10) in people with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc). The team found that the CD-RISC-10 is a valid and reliable measure of resilience in SSc, with comparable scores across both language versions. Importantly, this study is the first to validate a resilience scale in SSc, and its findings demonstrate that the CD-RISC-10 can be used to evaluate resilience in people with SSc, including in international studies involving English- and French-speaking participants. For more information about the study, please click here!

We’re excited to share that four team members have been awarded scholarships from Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé. Tiffany Dal Santo and Sabrina Provencher received Master’s Training Scholarships, while Elsa -Lynn Nassar and Marc Parsons received Doctoral Training Scholarships. They were all highly ranked on their respective panels. The funds will allow them to continue working on their projects with our team.

Dr. Afra Alkan has joined the DEPRESSD team as a postdoctoral fellow in April. She completed her PhD in Biostatistics at Ankara University in 2022 in Ankara, Türkiye. Her research interests include evaluation of diagnostic accuracy measures, multivariate analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and R programming. Learn more about Afra here.

The first report of the SPIN team’s living systematic review of the (1) prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in scleroderma and (2) factors associated with mood and anxiety symptoms, led by team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar, was recently published in Scientific Reports! The team found that the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders appears to be high in scleroderma, but estimates vary widely. None of the reviewed studies on factors associated with mood and anxiety symptoms included large enough samples to draw strong conclusions. The team will continue to update results as they become available, and ongoing dissemination of results will be facilitated via posting to the project website. To read the full article, click here! 

A correspondence on patient-researcher co-presentation of research results, led by team member Vanessa Cook, and co-authored by patient partner Amy Gietzen, team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar, SPIN collaborator Dr. Amanda Wurz, and Dr. Brett Thombs, has recently been published in The Lancet Rheumatology, the world's top rheumatology journal. The piece comments on SPIN's piloted method of co-presenting at The 2021 National Scleroderma Conference and highlights how collaborating with patients may improve the dissemination of research results to patients living with scleroderma and ensure that research is meaningful to those it affects.  Click here to read the full correspondence.

We are excited to share that team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar has been admitted to McGill’s PhD program in Clinical Psychology and will continue with the team for the next several years! Elsa will begin the program in September 2023, and her research will focus on improving knowledge translation and patient engagement in health (including mental health) research. Congratulations, Elsa!

Dr. Sarah Markham, a patient partner on our team, recently published an opinion piece in BMJ in response to our team’s latest publication titled “Comparison of mental health symptoms before and during the covid-19 pandemic: evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis of 134 cohorts.” The article emphasized the importance of high-quality research in the field of mental health. Read the full article here. 

A living systematic review on COVID-19 mental health changes, led by Sheryl and co-authored by other LSR members, has been published in the BMJ. This review evaluated longitudinal studies that compared mental health outcomes prior to the pandemic and during COVID-19. The team analyzed data from 134 cohorts of people from 31 countries. They found that there are no or minimal changes in mental health among the general population and 11 subgroups (e.g., age groups, sex or gender, pre-existing medical or mental health conditions). One exception is among women for whom there were consistent negative small changes across outcome domains. The results suggest that mental health in COVID-19 is more nuanced than previously assumed and that this is largely a story of resilience. To read the paper in BMJ [LINK] and view the infographic [LINK], click on the provided links

Dr. Wu and the team compared the accuracy of the 7-item Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Depression subscale (HADS-D) with the 14-item full scale (HADS-T) to screen for depression. In this study, 20,700 participants (2,285 major depression cases) from 98 studies were included. We found that sensitivity and specificity of the HADS-T were not superior to the HADS-D for detecting major depression. Thus, using the full 14-item HADS-T for depression screening would require additional time and patient burden without improving accuracy. Read more about the publication here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36689386/.

The SPIN team has been awarded a 1-year $20,000 Planning and Dissemination Grant-Institute Community Support for its project titled “Towards Understanding Pain Sources, Patterns, and Barriers to Effective Management in Systemic Sclerosis: A Patient-Researcher Partnership Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis.” Thanks to team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar for her leadership on the proposal. This project will involve SPIN researchers and patient partners to jointly develop a tool to assess sources of pain in systemic sclerosis (SSc), pain management services, and barriers to improving pain management. Congrats to the SPIN team!

The SPIN Team was awarded a $100,000 Arthritis Society of Canada Innovation Grant for its project titled “A Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network patient-researcher partnership to understand pain sources, patterns, and barriers to effective management in systemic sclerosis”. Thanks to team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar for her work on the proposal. The project will involve a patient-researcher partnership to jointly develop a pain assessment tool for scleroderma and administer the final version of the tool to the SPIN cohort. This will provide improved techniques for pain assessment in scleroderma and improved understanding of the multi-faceted nature of scleroderma pain, which is critical for improving management. Congrats to the SPIN Team!

The SPIN Scleroderma Support group Leader Education (SPIN-SSLED) Program Trial results were published in Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases. In the trial, 148 existing or candidate peer support group leaders were randomised to the 13-week videoconference-based program or to waitlist, and primary outcome data were provided by 146 (99%) participants. Satisfaction with the program was extremely high (30.3 out of possible 32 points), and participants attended an average of 11.4 out of 13 sessions. The program improved support group leader self-efficacy substantially, as well as leader volunteer satisfaction. The SPIN-SSLED Program continues to be offered by SPIN in collaboration with our patient organization partners. Link

Gabrielle and Bianca joined Thombs research team in September 2020. Gabrielle will finish her MSc thesis at McGill soon and start with the DEPRESSD team as a full-time biostatistician. She will be working with Dr. Benedetti on statistical challenges in IPDMA and doing applied statistical work. Bianca is an undergraduate student in psychology at McGill. She will be doing a full-year thesis project related to trajectories of pain in scleroderma with the SPIN Team and involved with the team on general SPIN activities. Read more about Gabrielle and Bianca.

We have several open positions for the DEPRESSD and COVID-19 LSR projects. Please see PDF for more details.

• Full-time Analytical Research Coordinator [PDF]

• Full-time Biostatistics PhD student [PDF]

• Full-time Epidemiology PhD student [PDF]

• Full-time Postdoctoral Fellow [PDF]

• Part-time Research Assistant [PDF]

The positions will remain open until filled.

Kexin, our research assistant in the DEPRESSD team, recently received an offer from the Master of Public Health program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health. She will be starting her semester in January 2023. Congratulations, Kexin!

A meta-research review led by team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar and co-authored by other team members, including Brooke Levis, Marieke Neyer, and Danielle Rice, was recently published in the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. The team assessed the completeness and transparency of reporting of recently published depression screening accuracy studies. A total of 106 studies were included and assessed for consistency with the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (STARD) statement requirements. Overall, the team found that recently published depression screening accuracy studies are not optimally reported, with individual studies adequately reporting an average of approximately a third of the items in the STARD checklist. Of the 34 STARD items or sub-items, there were 8 items adequately reported, 7 partially reported, 11 inadequately reported, and 4 not applicable in ≥ 50% of included studies; the remaining 4 items had mixed reporting. The team concluded that there is a need for attention to more fulsome reporting of methodological conduct of these studies, mostly related to test methods, test results, and analysis aspects. In order to improve the quality of reporting in depression screening accuracy studies, the research community, journal editors, reviewers, and funders should endorse and implement adherence to STARD. To learn more about the study, click here!

We are excited to share that the DEPRESSD team was awarded a 5-year funding (1.4 million) by CIHR for “The DEPRESsion Screening Data (DEPRESSD) Project: A Novel International Individual Participant Data Meta-analysis Collaboration to Advance Research on Depression Screening Tool Accuracy, Develop Statistical Methodology, and Conduct Meta-Research.” This grant will allow our team to update datasets for depression screening tools and conduct related studies in three categories: clinical, development and evaluation of Statistical Methods for IPDMA (Individual participant data meta-analysis) , and meta-research.

Shaddam joined the SPIN team as a full-time biostatistician on July 11th. He has been working part-time since June 5th. He is currently working on several SPIN projects and helping the team with statistical analysis. Shaddam completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Applied Statistics at the Institute of Statistical Research and Training (ISRT), University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and obtained a second master's in Statistics from the University of Calgary. He taught several courses and supervised graduate students at ISRT. Read more about Shaddam’s research here.

We are happy to share that the COVID-19 LSR team's paper on sex and gender differences in mental health symptom changes from pre-pandemic to early-pandemic is now published in Scientific Reports. This paper, led by Tiffany, identified 12 studies that reported dichotomized sex or gender data both prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Assessed outcomes included anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, general mental health, and stress. The paper concludes that mental health outcomes did not differ or were worse by small amounts among females/women compared to males/men during early COVID-19. Mental health changes should continue to be monitored longitudinally in COVID-19 taking into consideration sex and gender, as well as other population subgroups. Read more about the publication here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14746-1.

Dr. Thombs appeared on the July 3rd edition of Montreal CJAD 800’s Health Matters for World Scleroderma Day and discussed work that the SPIN Team is doing, including in COVID-19. Listen to the full episode here.

We are pleased to share that Brett Thombs and Claire Adams editorial: Addressing fatigue in inflammatory rheumatic diseases, was recently published in The Lancet Rheumatology. The editorial describes two trials on non-pharmacological interventions that could help improve fatigue management options in people with inflammatory rheumatic diseases. It highlights that more research is needed to learn how to deliver these interventions in real world practice, particularly in low resourced settings and where there are multiple problems to address. It also discusses ways to further test the interventions to deliver them efficiently and notes the importance of patient autonomy in decision making about their health care. Read more about the editorial here.

 Congrats to team member and master’s student Elsa-Lynn Nassar who was recently awarded a competitive Cedar and Maple Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian-Lebanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry!

The SPIN Team was awarded a $20,000 CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant and ranked very high for its proposal titled “Engaging Patients to Develop a Systemic Program of Patient Engagement in Musculoskeletal and Rare Disease Research: Putting Patients First”. The proposal was led by team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar, Dr. Brett Thombs, patient partner Maureen Sauvé, and Dr. Linda Kwakkenbos. This grant will support SPIN’s patient engagement work, which will involve engaging SPIN’s patient partners, scleroderma patient organization leaders, researchers, and clinicians to jointly develop an evidence-based framework for a patient engagement program. Congrats to the SPIN Team!

Lu Qiu recently join the DEPRESSD team as a Mitacs research intern. She studies biomedical engineering at South China University of Technology. She aspires to pursue future studies in the field of biostatistics. Read more about Lu here.

Sophie Hu will begin as a research assistant with the SPIN Team on June 27th. She will be working on a variety of tasks across projects in English and French. Sophie graduated from McGill in spring 2022 with her BSc in Psychology. Under the supervision of Dr. Jessica Flake, Sophie completed her honour’s thesis on the development and quantitative assessment of a measure of student motivation and engagement in the pandemic. Read more about Sophie here.

Lara Amiri recently joined the DEPRESSD team as a Mitacs intern. She studies psychology at the Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany. Lara aspires to study clinical psychology and clinical data science in the future. Read more about Lara here.

Vanessa Cook recently joined the SPIN team as a research associate. She works as a patient advocate and communications coordinator for individuals living with scleroderma. Vanessa completed her bachelor’s degree in April 2022 at Western University. She aspires to continue patient-centered work in the areas of autoimmunity and diet by pursuing a Naturopathic Doctorate (N.D.). Visit Vanessa’s page for more information.

Nadia Gonzalez Dominguez joined DEPRESSD team as an intern in April 2022. They received a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Superior Studies (ITESM) in 2018 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Nadia is currently studying a Master of Science in Public Health at McGill University. They worked in the field of neuroscience and data analysis, and medical device manufacturing industry. Nadia’s interests include epidemiological studies of mental health, social epidemiology, and public health policy. Visit Nadia's page for more information.

Claire Adams, as Postdoctoral Fellow, joined The Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN) project in March 2022. Claire earned her PhD in Health and Clinical Psychology in 2022. She is also a registered psychologist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). Claire’s main areas of expertise include mental health promotion, prevention, and early intervention, health behaviour change, healthy ageing, and patient-centered care. She’ll lead the SPIN Patient Engagement Project under the supervision of Prof. Brett Thombs, which aims to develop a systematic and effective model of patient engagement in SPIN. Visit Claire’s page for more information. 

Team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar was recently awarded the McGill Post-Graduate Student Society Travel Award to attend the Canadian Psychological Association's annual conference being held this June in Calgary. Elsa will be presenting results from her master's thesis work on the methodological quality and reporting transparency of depression screening accuracy studies through three posters and an oral presentation. Congratulations, Elsa!

We are excited to share that the COVID-19 LSR team's paper, led by Amina, on effects of mental health interventions among people hospitalized with COVID-19 , is now published in General hospital Psychiatry. This paper identified 47 randomized controlled trials from 3 countries, of which 21 tested the effects of psychological interventions, 5 physical and breathing exercises, and 21 a combination of interventions. It concludes that due to poor quality reporting there is insufficient evidence to make clinical recommendations based on included trials. Read more about the paper here.

We are thrilled to share that our DEPRESSD team was awarded a 1-year grant ($237,861) of New Frontiers in Research Fund. 2021 Innovative Approaches to Research in the Pandemic Context by Canada Research Coordinating Committee (CRCC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for our project “Comparison of depression research diagnoses and symptom scores obtained via conventional in-person and alternative methodologies”. This funding will allow the team to robustly evaluate how data collection methods, especially alternative methods increasingly used in COVID-19 may influence sensitive mental health assessments. Thanks to Yin for leading this!

Another review, led by team member Elsa-Lynn Nassar and co-authored by team members Dr. Brooke Levis, Marieke Neyer, and Danielle Rice, is published in the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. The team examined 106 primary studies on the accuracy of depression screening tools. The team found that only 11% described a viable sample size calculation and 34% provided reasonably accurate confidence intervals (CIs). Overall, the number of included individuals in most studies was too small to generate reasonably precise accuracy estimates; of 103 studies where 95% CIs were provided or could be calculated, only 7% had sensitivity CI widths of ≤10%, whereas 58 (56%) had widths of ≥21%. The team recommends that future studies of the diagnostic accuracy of depression screening tools should conduct precision-based a priori sample size calculations to either attain desired precision levels or to understand limitations prior to initiating a study. To read the full article, click here here!

We are excited to share that Dr. Yin Wu (DEPRESSD’s postdoctoral research fellow) has earned the McGill Medstar Award for Trainees for her publication in BMJ entitled: Accuracy of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale Depression Subscale (HADS-D) to screen for major depression: systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis, in recognition of the excellent research carried out in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University. The winning papers were selected to demonstrate excellence at all levels and to represent all disciplines of our training programs in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

We are happy to share that the COVID-19 LSR team's paper on the effects of COVID-19 mental health interventions among children, adolescents, and adultsis now published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. This paper, led by Olivia Bonardi, included randomised-controlled trials of interventions to address COVID-19 mental health challenges among people not hospitalised or quarantined due to COVID-19 infection. It identified 9 eligible trials, including 3 well-conducted, well-reported trials that tested interventions designed specifically for COVID-19 mental health challenges, plus 6 other trials with high risk of bias and reporting concerns, all of which tested standard interventions (e.g., individual or group therapy, expressive writing, mindfulness recordings) minimally adapted or not specifically adapted for COVID-19. The paper concluded that interventions that adapt evidence-based strategies for feasible delivery may be effective to address mental health in COVID-19. More well-conducted trials, including for children and adolescents, are needed. Read more about the publication here.

We are excited to share that Diana et al.’s Letter to Editors: The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale in patients with systemic sclerosis: a psychometric and factor analysis in a monocentric cohort, is now published in the Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology. The letter describes that mental health symptom questionnaires like the HADS are not intended nor calibrated to estimate prevalence; in most cases, they tend to overestimate the true prevalence of psychiatric disorders, often dramatically. It also discusses the evidence that would be needed to recommend mental health screening, which is labour intensive and can lead to unnecessary harms, like all screening programs. Read the letter here.

A meta-research study led by Elsa-Lynn Nassar (MSc Trainee) and co-authored by other team members, including Dr. Brooke Levis (Research Associate) and Danielle Rice (PhD Candidate), was recently accepted for publication in General Hospital Psychiatry. The aims of the study were to assess (1) the proportion of recently published studies of depression screening accuracy that appropriately excluded individuals with a confirmed depression diagnosis or who were already undergoing treatment and (2) whether this has improved since the last review of studies published in 2013-2015. A total of 106 primary studies were identified and assessed. Eighteen of 106 (17%) studies appropriately excluded already diagnosed or treated individuals, representing an 11% improvement since the last review. The proportion of depression screening accuracy studies that appropriately exclude individuals already known to have depression remains low. This may significantly bias research findings intended to inform clinical practice, where known depression cases are not screened. To learn more about the study, click here!

We are excited to share that our LSR team was awarded a two-year grant ($368,998) by CIHR’s Addressing the Wider Health Impacts of COVID-19 program for conducting our project “Loneliness Among Older Adults in COVID-19: A Living Systematic Review of Changes in Loneliness from Pre-COVID-19, Association with Mental Health Outcomes, and Effects of Interventions.” This funding will allow the team to continue to update its synthesis of evidence on mental health in COVID-19 and to specifically evaluate changes in loneliness and the effectiveness of interventions to reduce or prevent loneliness in older adults during COVID-19.

From April 9th to May 15th 2021, the SPIN COVID-19 Vaccine Survey was administered and completed by 936 participants of SPIN’s COVID-19 cohort. At that time, 75% of participants had already received at least one dose, while 10% were described as hesitant to get the vaccine. Hesitant responders also rated potential concerns about the vaccine as higher than non-hesitant participants. Altogether, there was substantially lower vaccine hesitancy than in the general population; the vaccine did not cause major changes in medication; and no severe reactions were reported. In fact, reactions to the vaccine were very similar to those reported in the general population. Congratulations to our colleagues at Cornell University, Drs Jessica Gordon, Kim Showalter and Robert Spiera who led the study. The article can be accessed here.

Enqi Wang and Hassan Khan, as research volunteers, joined the DEPRESSD team in January 2022. Enqi is an undergraduate psychology student with a minor in neuroscience at McGill. She is passionate about pursuing future studies in the field of clinical psychology. Hassan graduated from Carleton University with a Bachelor of Arts (honours) degree in Psychology. He hopes to pursue a career as scientist-practitioner in the near future. His research interests broadly include mental health, meta-research, and health services research. Visit Enqi's and Hassan’s pages to learn more about them. 

The SPIN Team followed over 400 participants from the ongoing SPIN Cohort who also provided data, initially every two weeks then every four weeks, during COVID-19. They found that anxiety symptoms increased substantially during the April 2020, but then began to subside and were back to pre-COVID-19 levels by early summer 2020, where they have stayed since then. Depression symptoms did not increase compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. Congratulations to Dr. Richard Henry, who led the study, and the rest of the SPIN Team. Read more here

Julia Nordlund, Dr. Richard Henry and the SPIN Team published their protocol in Trials for testing the SPIN-SELF Program. The SPIN-SELF Program has been revised to include facilitator-led videoconference group sessions in addition to online material. The SPIN Team will test the group-based intervention delivery format, then evaluate the effect of the SPIN-SELF Program on disease management self-efficacy, and other mental and physical health outcomes. This study will be a randomized controlled feasibility trial with progression to a full-scale trial. At the end of the feasibility portion, stoppage criteria will be used to determine if the trial procedures or SPIN-SELF Program need important modifications, thereby requiring a re-set for the full-scale trial. Otherwise, the full-scale RCT will proceed. Congratulations to Julia, Richard, Dr. Thombs and the rest of the team! Read more here.

SPIN’s study of pain in 2157 SPIN Cohort participants from 46 centres in 7 countries was published in Lancet Rheumatology. The study found that 35% of people with scleroderma live with moderate to severe pain and that greater pain intensity was associated with many different scleroderma disease manifestations. The SPIN Team concluded that health care providers should work with patients to address pain, including identifying and addressing disease manifestations associated with pain. The article can be found here.

See Dr. Thombs discuss the transformations he thinks we will see in how we do research over the next 25 years: https://200.mcgill.ca/digital-time-capsule/.

Laury Montemurro, as a research assistant, joined The Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN) project on October 4th. Laury finished her undergraduate studies in Psychology at McGill University in April 2021. She aims to pursue her studies in psychology by applying to the PhD program in Clinical Psychology. Click here to learn more about Laury.

Dr. Thombs was interviewed for the Scleroderma Foundation Southern California Chapter podcast about SPIN and its patient programs. The podcast will be available October 15 10:00 pm EST.

A review of evidence on depression screening for health care providers by Dr. Thombs, Danielle Rice and colleagues, which was published earlier in BMJ (https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1661.long) was covered by Peter Simons from Mad in America. Read the full article here.

We are happy to share that the DEPRESSD Team's updated IPDMA on the accuracy of the PHQ-9 screening tool has been published in the BMJ. The project, led by Dr. Zelalem Negeri, combined individual participant data from 100 studies (>44,000 participants) to evaluate the screening accuracy of the PHQ-9. The combined sensitivity and specificity of the PHQ-9 were maximized at a cut-off of >=10. Specificity was similar across reference standards, but sensitivity in studies with semi-structured interviews was higher than with fully structured reference standards and with the MINI. Moreover, specificity was higher for men and older participants. The full article can be accessed here. Researchers and clinicians can use our results to determine outcomes, such as the total number of positive screens and false-positive screens, at different PHQ-9 cut-offs for different clinical settings as described in our knowledge translation tool here.

Dr. Brett Thombs (www.thombsresearchteam.ca/) and Dr. Andrea Benedetti (https://www.mcgill.ca/epibiostat-occh/andrea-benedetti) of McGill University and the Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN; www.spinsclero.com) are seeking a full-time Data Manager and Analyst to contribute to observational studies and novel trials of patient-centred interventions in a rare disease context (PDF for more details).

• Start date: Start date is flexible, and applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

• To apply: applicants should send (1) a cover letter, (2) a curriculum vitae, (3) an unofficial transcript, (4)a writing sample, and (5) contact information for three references to Ms. Marie-Eve  Carrier (carrier.marie.eve@gmail.com).

See Q & A with Dr. Brett Thombs and COVID-MINDS on mental health research in the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Thombs discusses our living systematic review and what we have learned conducting this work: [LINK]

We are happy to share that the SPIN Team's study on nutrition information resources was published in Arthritis Care and Research - Open Rheumatology. Study investigators conducted nominal group technique sessions with people with scleroderma to examine the use of nutrition and diet information resources, and perceptions of these resources. This study is the first step of the SPIN - Diet and Nutrition Information (DINE) project led by Nora Østbø, which aims to identify and address existing information gaps in the area of nutrition and scleroderma, with the long-term goal of providing tools for people with SSc to find and access evidence-based information and guidance on nutrition and diet. Read more here: [LINK]. 

We are excited to announce that our project “Mental Health in People at Risk from COVID-19 Due to a Pre-Existing Medical Condition: Longitudinal Study of Risk Factors, Outcomes, and the Role of Vaccination” has been awarded a one-year CIHR grant. SPIN launched the SPIN-COVID-19 Cohort in April of 2020 to better understand mental health concerns of individuals with a pre-existing medical condition during the pandemic. This grant will allow our research team to continue this important work! 

SPIN is currently seeking applicants for a Full-time Research Assistant position in patient-engaged health research. (More details about this position).

Eligibility: Applicants should be fluent in English (spoken and written) and French (spoken; written French an asset); have a degree in psychology, health sciences, social sciences, or related field with strong academic record; and be able to commit for at least one and ideally two years.

Start Date: September 2021.

To apply: Applicants should send (1) a cover letter explaining their interest in the position and how this would support their career goals, (2) a curriculum vitae, (3) an unofficial transcript, and (4) an English writing sample and (if possible) an additional writing sample in French, to Marie- Eve Carrier at carrier.marie.eve@gmail.com). Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. French language capacity will be assessed during interview.​

We are excited to share that our LSR team was awarded a one-year grant ($220,052) by CIHR’s Emerging COVID-19 Research Gaps and Priorities Funding Opportunity for conducting our project “Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Ongoing Living Systematic Review of Mental Health Burden and Intervention Effectiveness to Inform Management Strategies During and Post-COVID-19.” This will allow the team to continue to update its synthesis of evidence on mental health in COVID-19.

We are excited to share that the DEPRESSD team was awarded a 3-year grant ($279,224) by CIHR to develop and test statistical methods for individual participant data meta-analysis in diagnostic test accuracy. A special thank you to Dr. Yin Wu, Dr. Zelalem Negeri, Sheryl Sun and Dr. Brooke Levis, who worked closely with Dr. Andrea Benedetti on the CIHR funding competition!

We are excited to share that Dr. Brett Thombs has just been awarded the Scleroderma Foundation’s 2021 “Messenger of Hope” award. This award was presented to Brett in recognition of his tremendous work with the scleroderma community through the SPIN programs that have elevated disease awareness, strengthened self-care among individuals living with the disease. Brett received this award on Saturday evening, July 17 in a virtual awards ceremony as part of the 2021 National Scleroderma Conference. Click HERE to watch the ceremony. 

Dr. Xia Qiu, a visiting PhD Student, and the DEPRESSD team published their protocol on OSF. The objectives of the study are (1) to evaluate the equivalence of continuous EPDS-9 and full EPDS scores for assessing depressive symptom severity; and (2) to assess the equivalence of the accuracy of the EPDS-9 and full EPDS across relevant cut-offs for screening to detect major depression. Read more here.

Suiqiong Fan, as a Research and Synthesis Analytical Coordinator, will be joining the DEPRESSD and COVID-19 Living Systematic Review projects on June 21. Suiqiong completed her BSc in Global Health at Wuhan University in 2019 and recently completed her MSc in Public Health from McGill. At McGill, Suiqiong worked on two projects related to child marriage. We’re fortunate to have her join the team!

SPIN is currently seeking applicants for a postdoctoral fellowship position in patient-engaged health research and novel clinical trials. (More details about this position).

Role: The postdoctoral fellow will lead or assist with ongoing SPIN projects and will have the opportunity to develop their own research.

Eligibility: Applicants should have a recent doctoral degree in a health-related field, such as psychology, public health, or epidemiology. The doctoral degree should be obtained by the date of hire.

Start Date: Start date is flexible, and applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

To apply: Applicants should send (1) a cover letter explaining their interest in the fellowship and how working in this position would support their career goals, (2) a curriculum vitae, (3) an unofficial transcript, (4) reprints or preprints of published articles or submitted manuscripts, and (5) contact information for three references to Ms. Marie-Eve Carrier (carrier.marie.eve@gmail.com).

The Scleroderma News published an article, entitled "Group Sessions Helpful for Mild Anxiety During COVID-19, Trial Finds”. The article featured a clinical psychologist Dr. Jill M. Newby's comments on the effectiveness of the SPIN-CHAT (COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together) Program in providing scleroderma participants with psychosocial tools and group activities to maintain mental health and break isolation during the pandemic. Its findings also emphasize “how essential it is to test, rather than assume what interventions work to improve mental health in susceptible groups during pandemic situations,” Newby added. Read the article here.

On May 22nd, Dr. Thombs was interview on Montreal CTV News, where he discussed changes in mental health from prior to COVID-19 to during the pandemic. Based on findings from the team's ongoing living systematic review of over 50 000 scientific articles, Dr. Thombs pointed out that across population groups, results suggest that, rather than a mental health crisis, at a population level, there has been a high level of resilience during COVID-19. Click here to watch the full interview. 

A Healio Rheumatology article by Jason Laday, entitled “Mental health intervention for scleroderma patients in COVID-19 lockdown sees mixed results”, featured Dr. Thombs’ comments on the SPIN-CHAT (COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together) Trial. Dr. Thombs highlights the importance of the SPIN-CHAT Trial - “A key takeaway from our trial is that this kind of ongoing collaborative group can move quickly and effectively to meet patient needs in real time. In terms of clinical significance, our trial showed that simple, multi-faceted strategies to address mental health, along with good peer support, can be used effectively by our vulnerable rheumatology patients to improve their mental health in COVID-19 and beyond.” Read the article here.

We are happy to share that the DEPRESSD Team's study on selective cutoff reporting in depression screening studies was published in the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research (IJMPR). This study, led by Dipika Neupane, compared selective cutoff reporting in the PHQ-9 and EPDS. The study highlights the importance of reporting accuracy estimates or contingency tables for all relevant cutoffs. Congratulations to Dipika and the rest of the DEPRESSD Team! Read more here.

We are excited to share that the DEPRESSD Team's IPDMA on the accuracy of the HADS-D screening tool has been published in the BMJ. The project, led by Dr. Yin Wu, combined individual participant data from 101 studies (>22,000 participants) to evaluate the screening accuracy of the HADS-D. Combined sensitivity and specificity of the HADS-D was maximized at a cut-off of >=7. Accuracy was similar across reference standards and subgroups, and when published results from studies that did not contribute data were included. Read the full article: here  Clinicians and researchers who consider screening for depression with the HADS-D can refer to our associated knowledge translation tool which estimates the expected number of positive screens as well as true and false screening outcomes for different screening thresholds.

Actualités UQAM, the Université de Québec à Montréal's (UQÀM) news bulletin, published a press release, entitled " Groupes de soutien par visioconférence" (which translates to "Videoconferenced-based support groups"). The article featured professional educator Dr. Ghassan El-Baalbaki's and scleroderma support group facilitator Violet Konrad's comments on the effectiveness of the SPIN-CHAT (COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together) Program in providing scleroderma participants with psychosocial tools and group activities to maintain mental health and break isolation during the pandemic. Read the article (available in French only) here.

Marie-Nicole Discepola and the SPIN Team published their protocol in BMJ Open. Their living systematic review will compile evidence on  the effectiveness of non-pharmacological and non-surgical interventions on mental and physical health outcomes. As a living systematic review, once the initial evidence is assessed, the team will keep updating on an ongoing basis so that people in the scleroderma community can easily access the most current evidence on the project website (forthcoming). Congratulations to Marie-Nicole, Andrea Carboni-Jiménez, Dr. Kwakkenbos, and Dr. Richard Henry, Dr. Thombs and the rest of the team! Read more here.

Congratulations to Elsa-Lynn Nassar, who received the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) Master's Award, in addition to a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship for her Master’s training with the Thombs research team (see previous item on 2021/04/01)! Elsa began her MSc program today, and will be working with both the SPIN and DEPRESSD teams.

The CONSORT-ROUTINE, an extension of the CONSORT reporting guideline for innovative trials conducted using cohorts and routinely collected data (electronic health records, registries, administrative databases) was published today in BMJ (here). CONSORT-ROUTINE, which was led by our team, provides guidance to support adequate reporting of these types of trials. Congratulations to Dr. Kwakkenbos, Mahrukh Imran, Danielle Rice, and Dr. Thombs, who led or were part of the CONSORT-ROUTINE project team. An article that describes the methods used to develop CONSORT-ROUTINE was published simultaneously in BMJ Open (here).

This coming Sunday, April 25th, at 12:50pm EDT, radio station CJAD 800 AM will feature a short segment by Dr. Thombs on the SPIN-CHAT Trial. Tune in to learn more! For additional information on the study, see here.
UPDATE: Click here to listen to April 25th's Health Matters podcast, "The latest research advances in diabetes and wearable technology" (Dr. Thombs's segment starts at 30:53).

Results from the SPIN-CHAT (COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together) Program have been published in Lancet Rheumatology. The trial evaluated the effects of a videoconference-based program on anxiety symptoms and other mental health outcomes among people with scleroderma. It tested a multi-faceted strategy designed in collaboration with patient advisors. Eligible participants from the SPIN-COVID-19 Cohort were invited to take part in 3 sessions a week for 4 weeks. 172 participants were randomly assigned to intervention (n=86) or waitlist (n=86). SPIN-CHAT did not significantly improve mental health by the end of the 4-week intervention period, but symptoms of anxiety and depression were significantly improved 6 weeks later. Congratulations to the SPIN Team and their international team of researchers, professional educators, support group moderators, and SPIN-COVID-19 Patient Advocates! Read the article here. The accompanying editorial can be found here.

A new study, led by Parash Bhandari and the DEPRESSD Team, has been published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. This is the first study to use real patient data to estimate the degree that data-driven methods result in selection of inaccurate optimal cutoffs and bias in accuracy estimates. The team found that the optimal cutoffs identified in primary accuracy studies are often incorrect and accuracy estimates are often overstated. Sensitivity was substantially overestimated with a minimal underestimation of specificity, particularly in smaller samples. The implications are twofold: (1) researchers should avoid making recommendations about cutoffs to use in practice and accuracy when reporting results from small studies, and (2) clinicians should only select cutoffs generated from well-conducted meta-analyses or those that are identified consistently across multiple studies. Read more about the study here.

Congratulations to Elsa-Lynn Nassar, who was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship for her Master’s training with the Thombs research team. Elsa will be joining the SPIN & DEPRESSD teams in May. She began her undergraduate studies at the Lebanese American University and is currently completing her Bachelor's degree at Concordia University. Elsa has already been involved in a number of research projects including work on obsessive-compulsive disorder, bullying, eating disorders, and mental health symptom expression from a cross-cultural perspective.

Dr. Thombs' comments on research done by the COVID-19 Living Systematic Review Team were featured in a National Post article,"There's a lot of resilience': Why mental health is holding up to COVID-19 better than expected". Dr. Thombs describes evidence for mental health resilience at the population level while outlining the need to be concerned about mental health in vulnerable groups, based on findings from the team's ongoing living systematic review of over 50 000 scientific articles. Read the article here.

A Radio-Canada article by Valérie Ouellet, entitled "Après les mesures sanitaires s'enchaînent les SOS en santé mentale" (which translates to "After the public health measures comes the mental health SOS"), featured Dr. Thombs' remarks on the validity of call volumes as an indicator of distress and the credibility of suicide rates along with recent research from the COVID-19 Living Systematic Review Team. Dr. Thombs highlights the global effects of the pandemic on mental health, based on findings from the team's ongoing living systematic review of over 45 000 scientific articles, and the monitoring of 8 English and Chinese databases. Read the article (available in French only) here.

We are excited to share with you our latest SPIN publication. SPIN's former postdoctoral research fellow, Dr. Shadi Gholizadeh's article on the effects of cosmetic and other camouflage interventions on appearance-related and psychological outcomes among adults with visible differences in appearance has now been published online by BMJ Open. Results from this systematic review of one head-to-head trial and five trials with waiting list or routine care comparators revealed that conclusions about the effectiveness of non-surgical cosmetic or other camouflage interventions could not be drawn, highlighting the critical need for well-designed and conducted trials.In addition to Dr. Thombs, current and former team members who contributed to the study included Danielle Rice, Andrea Carboni-Jiménez, Dr. Linda Kwakkenbos, and Ankur Krishnan, in collaboration with the SPIN Body Image Patient Advisory Team. Read more here.

Congratulations to the DEPRESSD team, which was successful in obtaining two $100,000 Project Grants from CIHR, through the Personalized Health priority announcement! One proposal was for updating our databases on the PHQ-9, EPDS, HADS, and GDS depression screening tools. The other was for advancing statistical methods to use for developing personalized depression screening models.

Sami Harb’s MSc thesis (recently published in Arthritis Care & Research) was featured in Healio Rheumatology (https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20210225/fatigue-raynauds-top-physical-activity-barriers-for-patients-with-scleroderma). Congratulations to Sami and the rest of the SPIN team! To learn more about the study, see previous news item published on 2021/02/03 entitled "Results from the SPIN-PACE Survey, Sami Harb's MSc thesis, published in Arthritis Care & Research".

A new study, led by Dr. Felix Fischer (Psychometrics and Health Outcomes Research, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine of The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin), Dr. Brooke Levis and the rest of the DEPRESSD Team, has been published in Psychological Medicine. The study used an individual participant data meta-analysis (IPDMA) database to compare different scoring methods based on latent variable models of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Read more about the study: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721000131

This week, a survey study related to the SPIN - Physical ACtivity Enhancement (SPIN-PACE) project was accepted for publication in Arthritis Care & Research. The objectives were to determine the (1) prevalence and importance of ​physical activity barriers experienced in scleroderma and (2) likelihood of using possible facilitators to overcome barriers. In brief, among 721 respondents, medical-related barriers were most prevalent, and fatigue and Raynaud's phenomenon were most important. Facilitators likely to be used involved adapting exercise, taking care of one’s body, keeping warm, and protecting skin. The SPIN team ​will later use the survey results to develop ​and test the online SPIN-PACE program ​with the aim of supporting people with scleroderma in leading an active lifestyle. Congratulations to Sami and the rest of the SPIN Team! Read more here.

Team member Andrea Carboni Jiménez one of 180 students with excellent academic track records to be accepted into the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL)/Juris Doctor (JD) program at McGill University. Andrea completed her second undergraduate honours thesis under the supervision of Dr. Brett Thombs researching the burden experienced by caregivers of people with various medical conditions. Her Master’s of Psychiatry thesis focuses on examining the effectiveness of psychological interventions delivered to incarcerated individuals with (1) mood disorders and (2) post traumatic stress disorder. In addition, Andrea is currently leading a project evaluating health outcomes from randomized control trials that have tested questionnaire-based screening. Congratulations Andrea!

A CBC Life - Culture article by Chloe Rose Stuart-Ulin, entitled "Expert advice on how to tackle resolutions for 2021", featured Dr. Brett Thombs' tips on mental health and the importance of staying connected. Read the article here: 
www.cbc.ca/life/culture/expert-advice-on-how-to-tackle-resolutions-for-2021-1.5856689

Dr. Richard Henry was awarded a $10,000 grant by the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) Evidence Alliance to fund his research on the "Incorporation of recommendations for gender-diverse people in clinical practice guidelines: A review of traditionally sex-binary guidelines and recommendations". The goal of the project is to improve health care guidance for gender-diverse individuals by providing guideline producers and health care practitioners with information about the degree that existing guidelines address needs of gender-diverse individuals and examples where they have been addressed appropriately. Dr. Henry's project was one of two (out of 25 applicants) funded by the highly competitive SPOR Seed Grant.

A new study, conducted by Dr. Yin Wu and the SPIN Team, has been published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110314). It was the first to explore the factors associated with fears during COVID-19 in a vulnerable population with a pre-existing medical condition and the first study that applied the validated COVID-19 Fears Questionnaire for Chronic Medical Conditions, which was developed based on input from over 100 people with scleroderma who shared their fears and with advice from the SPIN-COVID-19 Patient Advisory Team. By linking pre-COVID-19 data from the SPIN Cohort and COVID-19 data collected in April 2020, results from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States were compared, controlling for pre-COVID-19 anxiety symptoms. They found that fears due to COVID-19 among people with SSc were greatest among participants from the United Kingdom, followed by Canada, the United States, and France. Greater interference of breathing problems in daily activities and lower financial resource adequacy were associated with fear levels, as well.

We are thrilled to share that the DEPRESSD Team's IPD meta-analysis on the accuracy of the EPDS screening tool has been published in the BMJ. The study, led by Dr. Brooke Levis, synthesized data from 58 studies (>15,000 participants), and found that the combination of sensitivity and specificity was maximized at a cutoff value of ≥ 11. Accuracy was similar across reference standards and subgroups, including for pregnant and postpartum women. Read the full article here. Clinicians considering screening for depression with the EPDS can refer to our associated knowledge translation tool (depressionscreening100.com/epds), which estimates expected numbers of positive screens and true and false screening outcomes for different screening thresholds.

The invited editorial was published in the British Journal of General Practice (https://bjgp.org/content/70/700/530). It follows the team’s study on organization COI published in CMAJ earlier this year (www.cmaj.ca/content/192/23/E617/tab-article-info). See previous news item published on 2020/06/08 entitled "Team study on financial conflicts among Canadian producers of medication guidelines published in CMAJ".

Earlier this month, Dr. Brett Thombs and Danielle Rice presented at the 19th Bi-Annual National Scleroderma Conference. Scleroderma Canada’s conference was held virtually for the first time this year, due to COVID-19. As an invited Opening Keynote speaker on October 5th, Dr. Thombs introduced the audience to SPIN’s research and recent developments (watch the presentation in full here). On October 7th, Dr. Thombs announced the recipients of the 2019 and 2020 Maureen Sauvé Inspiration Award (access the recording here). Danielle followed with a presentation of her research on “Identifying the Needs and Priorities of Informal Caregivers for People Living with Systemic Sclerosis” (watch in full here and read the publication in Disability and Rehabilitation: https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2018.1557268). Presentation slides and additional caregiving resources are available to all on the Scleroderma Ontario Resource Centre: www.sclerodermaontario.ca/file-share

We are happy to announce that the DEPRESSD team's paper, "Depression Prevalence Based on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale Compared to Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Classification: Systematic Review and Individual Participant Data Meta-analysis", has been published in the International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mpr.1860). The study, led by Anita Lyubenova (MITACS summer intern for DEPRESSD, 2019) who was mentored by Dipika Neupane (analytical coordinator), examined data from 29 studies (7315 participants, 1017 major depression cases), to compare depression prevalence estimates based on the EPDS versus the SCID. We found that prevalence based on the most commonly used EPDS cutoffs, ≥ 10 to ≥ 13, overestimated depression prevalence by 12.6% to 1.9% compared to SCID. EPDS cutoff ≥ 14 provided pooled prevalence closest to SCID (pooled difference: -0.7%) but single-study differences were highly heterogeneous. Findings suggest that EPDS should not be used as a substitute for a validated diagnostic interview.

A new study, conducted by Dr. Yin Wu and the SPIN Team, has been published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399920308333). Results of the study demonstrate that the COVID-19 Fears Questionnaire for Chronic Medical Conditions is a valid instrument to assess fear among people at risk due to pre-existing medical conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fears experienced during the COVID-19 crisis were first solicited from 121 people with scleroderma. Then, in collaboration with the SPIN Patient Advisory Team, items to evaluate for inclusion in a COVID-19-specific fear measure were developed. The COVID-19 Fears Questionnaire for Chronic Medical Conditions was validated in the ongoing SPIN cohort of almost 800 people with SSc, and the its validity was verified in the second wave of the cohort.

We are happy to announce that the team's paper, "Balance of Group Sizes in Randomized Controlled Trials Published in American Psychological Association Journals", has been published in Health Psychology. The study, led by Mara Cañedo-Ayala who was mentored by Danielle Rice, examined data from 115 eligible studies to evaluate whether sample size differences between arms of two-arm parallel group randomized controlled trials published in American Psychological Association-affiliated journals were consistently smaller than expected by chance with simple randomization. They found that there was a significantly greater number of trials with smaller sample size differences between trial arms than would be expected by chance. Thus, education is needed to ensure that randomization procedures are implemented as intended and fully and accurately reported. Read more about the study: https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fhea0001020

The SPIN Team has published results from a study that compares symptoms of anxiety among 435 participants in the ongoing SPIN Cohort. They found that, on average, anxiety symptoms during April 2020 were substantially higher than prior to COVID-19, whereas depressive symptom change was negligible. Overall, anxiety increased by a clinically meaningful amount for 51% of participants. Anxiety symptoms increased most for participants from the United Kingdom and United States, with lower increases for Canada and France. Greater anxiety increases also appeared to be associated with younger age, shorter time since diagnosis, and less adequate financial resources and non-employment. The study results are available free-of-charge via the following link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399920308242

We are excited to share that the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research has selected the DEPRESSD Team's recent JAMA publication as the September 2020 Paper of the Month. The project, led by Dr. Brooke Levis, combined individual participant data from 100 studies (>44,000 participants) to evaluate the screening accuracy of the PHQ-2 alone and in combination with the PHQ-9. The combination of PHQ-2 (with a cutoff of >=2) followed by the PHQ-9 (with a cutoff of >=10) was found to have similar accuracy to PHQ-9 alone, but reduced the number of participants needing to complete the full PHQ-9 by 57%. Access the full article here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2766865

We are happy to announce that the DEPRESSD team's paper, "Depression prevalence using the HADS-D compared to SCID major depression classification: An individual participant data meta-analysis", has been published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399920308187). The study, led by Eliana Brehaut (undergraduate thesis student) who was mentored by Dipika Neupane (analytical coordinator), examined data from 41 studies (6005 participants, 689 with major depression), to compare depression prevalence estimates based on the HADS-D versus the SCID. They found that prevalence based on HADS-D ≥ 8 (24.5%) was more than double the SCID (11.6%), and while HADS-D ≥ 11 (10.7%) was similar, single-study differences were highly heterogeneous. Findings suggest that the HADS-D should not be used as a substitute for a validated diagnostic interview.

A new study, led by Andrea Benedetti and the DEPRESSD Team, in collaboration with Dr. Gerta Rücker (University of Freiburg) and Dr. Hayley Jones (University of Bristol), has been published in Research Synthesis Methods. The study used DEPRESSD PHQ-9 data to compare 3 methods for meta-analyzing diagnostic test accuracy data when primary studies report accuracy results for only some of the possible cutoff thresholds. Read more about the study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jrsm.1443.

Recently, SPIN received a CIHR grant for conducting qualitative interviews with SPIN-CHAT (SPIN COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together) Program Trial participants. SPIN-CHAT participants will be recruited by the SPIN team and invited to individual videoconference-based follow-up interviews that will be led by our research partners, Kelsey Ellis, Delaney Duchek, and Mannat Bansal, from the University of Calgary, under the supervision of Dr. Amanda Wurz. The CIHR funding will also help support SPIN's infrastructure and help us continue to provide online resources to the scleroderma community, free-of-charge.

This week, members of the team received an additional $199,836 from the CIHR to supplement previous CIHR and MI4 funding for a living systematic review on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This grant supports continued work in dissemination and processing a high volume of evidence. Thank you to the CIHR! Congratulations to team members Yutong Wang, Ankur Krishnan, Kevin Jutras, Olivia Bonardi, Danielle Rice, Jill Boruff, Marleine Azar, Chen He, Dr. Sarah Markham, Sheryl Sun, Dr. Yin Wu, Ian Thombs-Vite, and Drs. Benedetti and Thombs.

We are happy to announce that the DEPRESSD Team published a paper entitled “Probability of Major Depression Classification Based on the SCID, CIDI, and MINI Diagnostic Interviews: A Synthesis of Three Individual Participant Data Meta-Analyses” in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. This study, led by Dr. Yin Wu (DEPRESSD’s postdoctoral research fellow), combined datasets from over 200 studies (around 70,000 participants, ) and showed how different diagnostic interviews perform differently, was really important and the first meta-research synthesized IPD meta-analyses. The results suggested that, adjusting for depressive symptom levels and participant characteristics, compared to the SCID, the MINI classified major depression more often. Odds of depression classification with the CIDI increased less as symptom levels increased. Based on the findings, mental health researchers should carefully consider the interview characteristics when interpreting research that used diagnostic interviews to classify depression.

Read more about the study https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32814337/

Team member Andrea Carboni-Jiménez was recently awarded a Delta Upsilon Memorial Scholarship to support the second year of her graduate studies at McGill University. This award is open to students who have received an undergraduate degree from McGill University in any faculty, and is tenable for graduate study at any recognized university. Andrea's master's thesis is a systematic review evaluating the effectiveness of psychological therapies among incarcerated populations with (1) mood disorders and (2) post-traumatic stress disorder. Congratulations, Andrea! 

Congratulations to Dr. Richard Henry, who was awarded the Distinguished Dissertation Award in Social Sciences, Business and Education from Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Henry's dissertation focused on examining the relationships among Parkinson’s disease symptoms, stigma, and mental health outcomes and the ways in which social support and spirituality might mitigate negative mental health outcomes. He recently joined the SPIN team as a postdoctoral fellow and will be involved in various SPIN research projects. 

DEPRESSD summer student Eliana Brehaut has received a McGill Dow-Hickson Scholarship, which is given to students "entering the penultimate or the final year of the Honours programs in English Literature, Philosophy or Psychology. Awarded by a joint committee of the scholarships committees of the Faculties of Arts and of Science upon the recommendations of the departments concerned". Eliana recently completed her first honours thesis, which compared depression prevalence estimates based on the HADS-D, a commonly used screening tool, versus the SCID, a validated diagnostic interview. Eliana will be continuing her research with the team during the fall semester. Her next project will examine methods of optimal cutoff selection in depression screening studies. 

The Task Force, led by Dr. Thombs, published a new guideline on screening for esophageal adenocarcinoma in patients with chronic gastroesopageal reflus disease without alarm symptoms. The Task Force develops and disseminates guidance for prevention in Canadian primary care. This new guideline reports that evidence does not support screening and that resources would be used more wisely for other services with evidence of benefit for patients. Link to guideline: https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/27/E768.

The SPIN COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together (SPIN-CHAT) Program Trial was funded by CIHR. The trial tests the effects of a muti-faceted video-conference-based group mental health intervention on anxiety and other mental health symptoms. The trial was launched with funds from the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity Emergency COVID-19 Research Fund and generous contributions fromScleroderma Canada, made possible by an educational grant for patient support programming from Boehringer Ingelheim; the Scleroderma Society of Ontario; Scleroderma Manitoba; Scleroderma Atlantic; Scleroderma Australia; Scleroderma New South Wales; Scleroderma Victoria; Scleroderma Queensland; Scleroderma SASK; Scleroderma Association of BC; and Sclérodermie Québec. Results for the trial will be available in July. Link to trial protocol: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399920304001.

See Dr. Thombs’ comments on a recent survey of mental health in Quebec and the rest of Canada by the Canadian Press, which appeared in the Globe and Mail (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-majority-of-quebecers-believe-first-wave-of-covid-19-pandemic-is-over/), L’actualité (https://lactualite.com/actualites/une-majorite-de-quebecois-croit-que-la-premiere-vague-est-terminee/), and other outlets.

The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (Task Force) is holding its first ever online meeting on June 15-16, 2020. The meeting is led by Dr. Thombs (Task Force Chair) and has been organized by team members Daniela Cortinovis (Task Force Manager) and Julia Nordlund (Task Force Administrator). The Task Force typically meets in-person three times a year to discuss recommendations on screening practices, methodology for guideline development, communication activities, knowledge translation initiatives and much more! Due to COVID-19, the June 2020 meeting is being held via videoconference. More information about the Task Force guidelines and activities is available here: https://canadiantaskforce.ca/

We are thrilled to announce that a DEPRESSD project evaluating the screening accuracy of the PHQ-2 alone and in combination with the PHQ-9 has been published in JAMA. The study, led by Brooke Levis, synthesized data from 100 studies (>44,000 participants), and found that the combination of PHQ-2 (with a cutoff of >=2) followed by the PHQ-9 (with a cutoff of >=10) had similar accuracy to PHQ-9 alone, but reduced the number of participants needing to complete the full PHQ-9 by 57%. Access the full article here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2766865

Congratulations to former team members Katie Elder and Kimberly Turner, along with Dr. Thombs, whose study entitled “Reporting of financial conflicts of interest by Canadian clinical practice guideline producers: a descriptive study” was recently published in CMAJ. The study found that most Canadian guidelines on medications are produced by disease interest groups and medical specialty societies that receive funding from the makers of the medications under review; but, none of these organizations disclose those conflicts in the guidelines. To learn more about the study, click here (https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/23/E617).

This week, Psychiatric News from the American Psychiatric Association published an article (https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.pn.2020.5b6) on a recent study conducted by Dr. Brooke Levis and the rest of the DEPRESSD team. The team combined data from >9000 participants from 44 studies to compare prevalence of depression based on the PHQ-9 screening tool to prevalence based on a validated diagnostic interview for major depression, the SCID. Prevalence based on the PHQ-9 (at the standard cutoff of ≥ 10) was double (12% greater than) prevalence based on the SCID, and no alternative PHQ-9 cutoff matched SCID prevalence consistently. These findings demonstrate that screening tools such as the PHQ-9 should not be used to make diagnostic classifications or to estimate prevalence. To learn more about the study, please click on the link above.

We are thrilled to announce that our SPIN-CHAT trial protocol, "Protocol for a Partially Nested Randomized Controlled Trial to Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together (SPIN-CHAT) Program to Reduce Anxiety among At-Risk Scleroderma Patients" has now been published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research! The protocol describes a randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of the SPIN-CHAT Program in improving mental health outcomes among individuals with scleroderma during the COVID-19 outbreak. The SPIN-CHAT Program is a 4-week (3 sessions per week) videoconference-based intervention that includes activity engagement, education on strategies to support mental health, and mutual support among scleroderma patients. Read more about the study here. 

Congratulations to Dr. Thombs, who was awarded a Fonds de recherche Santé – Québec Distinguished Research Scholar Award (2020-2024) for his work with SPIN, DEPRESSED and in meta-research and policy.

Congratulations to current and former team members Zelalem, Dipika, Brooke, Marleine, Yin, and Kim, who had 5 oral presentations and 6 poster presentations accepted for the 27th Cochrane Colloquium! Presentations related to the DEPRESSD Project include: individual participant data meta-analyses of PHQ-2, PHQ-9, EPDS, and HADS accuracy; selective cutoff reporting in depression screening accuracy studies; imperfect reference standards for major depression classification; and a knowledge translation tool for clinician understanding of diagnostic accuracy estimates. Presentations related to meta-research and policy include: reporting of conflicts of interest in Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses of drug trials, and factors associated with contribution of data to individual participant data meta-analyses of intervention effectiveness.

Congratulations to Danielle Rice, who yesterday successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “Engaging individuals with lived experiences: identifying the needs and priorities of informal caregivers for people living with systemic sclerosis.” Danielle has led SPIN’s work with caregivers marvellously over the last couple of years. Her list of accomplishments in this area and others is long! Danielle has already published 64 peer-reviewed articles (18 as first author), including a recent publication on criteria for academic promotion, which has been accepted for publication in BMJ. To support her doctoral training, Danielle was awarded a prestigious Vanier Graduate Scholarship from CIHR, a CIHR Health Systems Impact Fellowship, a CIHR Doctoral Training Award (declined), and a Fonds de Recherche en Santé du Québec doctoral training award (declined). Danielle will be doing her clinical psychology internship at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, Ontario over the next year, at which point, she will be Dr. Danielle Rice. Way to go, Danielle!

This week, members of the team received $50,000 from the CIHR to supplement MI4 funding for a living systematic review on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This grant supports more effective dissemination and work in processing a high volume of Chinese-language evidence. Thank you to the CIHR! Congratulations to team members Olivia Bonardi, Danielle Rice, Jill Boruff, Marleine Azar, Chen He, Dr. Sarah Markham, Sheryl Sun, Dr. Yin Wu, Ankur Krishnan, Ian Thombs-Vite, and Drs. Benedetti and Thombs.

Kimberly Turner’s master’s thesis (recently published in BMJ Open) was featured in Cochrane Collaboration News. The study concluded that the percentage of recent Cochrane meta-analyses on the effects of drug interventions that transparently reported funding sources and trial author–industry financial ties and employment for included trials far exceeds reporting in other journals. Congratulations to Kimberly, and to other and former team members, Andrea Carboni-Jiménez, Carla Benea, Katie Elder, and Brooke Levis. Read more here. 

We are excited to share that our paper entitled “Reporting of Drug Trial Funding Sources and Author Financial Conflicts of Interest in Cochrane and non-Cochrane Meta-analyses: A Cross-sectional Study” has been published in BMJ Open. This work provides a much-needed update on the state of reporting of financial conflicts of interest from trials included in systematic reviews and meta-analyses by examining whether reporting has improved since the implementation of a reporting policy by Cochrane in 2012 and examining the differences in reporting between contemporary Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses. Read more about the study here.

On May 9th, SPIN and DEPRESSD Teams' oral symposia were presented at the ICP online due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The symposia were pre-recorded and uploaded onto ICP's online platform, which was made available to registered conference attendees during the virtual conference. Below are the hyperlinks to recordings of both symposia: 

SPIN - Patient-centered Interdisciplinary Research in a Rare Disease Context (https://www.dropbox.com/s/1w7n0zs4442ugui/SPIN-V3.mp4?dl=0)

DEPRESSD - Addressing Challenges in Evaluating Depression Screening Tool Accuracy (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bz387u883cfjte3/AABWzZPR0ti9jzloDtjBNogSa?dl=0)

We are happy to share that our paper entitled “Trial Corresponding Author Country, Year, and Journal Impact Factor Associated with Data Contribution to IPDMAs” has been published in its final version in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. In this study, we reviewed individual patient data meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials to determine the proportion of data contribution amongst eligible trials and factors associated with data contribution. We found that 67% of trials contributed data, and that more recently published trials and trials published in journals with a higher impact factor were associated with data contribution. Trials from the United Kingdom were more likely to contribute data that those from the United States. Congratulations to Marleine Azar, Andrea Benedetti, Kira E Riehm, Mahrukh Imran, Ankur Krishnan, Matthew Chiovitti, Tatiana Sanchez, Ian Shrier and Brett Thombs for their work. The article is available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1b1DH3BcJQ0WiA. 

We are thrilled to announce that a SPIN trial protocol, led by Marie-Eve Carrier, was recently published in JMIR Research Protocols. This published protocol describes methods that we used in a recent SPIN-SELF (Self-Management) feasibility trial (July to November 2019) to assess the feasibility of conducting a full-scale randomized control trial (RCT) of the SPIN-SELF (Self-Management) program, by evaluating the trial implementation processes, required resources and management, scientific aspects, participant acceptability and usage of the SPIN-SELF program. Results of the feasibility study are expected to be published in 2020, which will guide adjustments needed before undertaking a planned full-scale RCT of the SPIN-SELF program. Read more about the study here. 

This week, members of the team received $65,000 from the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity (MI4)'s Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding Program to conduct a living systematic review on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objectives of this living systematic review are to evaluate (1) changes in mental health symptoms; (2) factors associated with levels or changes in symptoms during COVID-19; and (3) the effect of interventions on mental health symptoms during COVID-19. A huge thank-you to the MI4 initiative who generously supports this important research project during these trying times. Congratulations for team members Olivia Bonardi, Danielle Rice, Jill Boruff, Marleine Azar, Chen He, Dr. Sarah Markham, Sheryl Sun, Dr. Yin Wu, Ankur Krishnan, Ian Thombs-Vite, and Drs. Benedetti and Thombs.

Recently, the SPIN team applied to the MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding and was granted $100,000 for its proposal titled “Mental health in an at-risk population during COVID-19: longitudinal study of risk factors and outcomes and embedded trial of an activity, education, and support intervention”. In addition to this, the team also received funding from Scleroderma Canada (made possible by an educational grant for patient support programming from Boehringer Ingelheim), the Scleroderma Society of Ontario, Scleroderma Manitoba, Scleroderma Atlantic, Scleroderma Australia, Scleroderma New South Wales, Scleroderma Victoria, Scleroderma Queensland, the Scleroderma Association of BC, the Scleroderma Association of Saskatchewan, and Scleroderma Quebec. SPIN will use these funds for a cohort study that examines mental health during COVID-19, comparing to pre-COVID-19 outcomes, and to conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the SPIN COVID-19 Home-isolation Activities Together (SPIN-CHAT) Program to reduce anxiety among at-risk scleroderma patients. Thank you, MI4 and all the patient organizations, for your tremendous support! 

This week, we learned that SPIN’s MSc students, Maria Gagarine and Andrea, both received funding from MITACS and partner funding from the Scleroderma Society of Ontario, for their summer internships with SPIN. Congratulations, Maria and Andrea!

We are glad to share that SPIN’s symposium “Patient-centered Interdisciplinary Research in a Rare Disease Context: The Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN)” (chair: Danielle Rice, co-presenters: Sami Harb, Andrea Carboni-Jimenez, Lydia Tao) and DEPRESSD’s symposium, “Addressing challenges in evaluating depression screening tool accuracy via individual participant data meta-analysis” (chair: Yin Wu, co-presenters: Zelalem Negeri, Dipika Neupane, Parash Bhandari, Eliana Brehaut), are both accepted to the 9th Interdisciplinary Conference of Psychology, which will be presented online during May 7-9 due to the current COVID-19 outbreak.

Congratulations to the DEPRESSD team, whose Journal of Clinical Epidemiology article was featured in Mad in America. The study, led by Brooke Levis, found that prevalence based on the PHQ-9 screening tool (at the standard cutoff of ≥ 10) was double (12% greater) prevalence based on a validated diagnostic interview for major depression, the SCID. No alternative PHQ-9 cutoff matched SCID prevalence consistently. Read more here.

This week, the first study related to the SPIN - Physical ACtivity Enhancement (SPIN-PACE) project was published in Disability & Rehabilitation. This study, led by MSc student Sami Harb, used a formal consensus development method, the nominal group technique, in which people with scleroderma identified (1) barriers (challenges) to physical activity and (2) facilitators (strategies) to overcome challenges. Read more here.

Sami Harb, a MSc student who is working with us on the SPIN-PACE project, will enter York University's MA-PhD Clinical Psychology program in September 2020. His MA thesis will address psychosocial oncology. Congratulations, Sami! 

We are excited to announce that Drs. Yin Wu and Brooke Levis had oral presentations accepted and Dipika Neupane had a poster presentation accepted for the MEMTAB2020 (Methods for Evaluation of medical prediction Models, Tests And Biomarker 2020) symposium in Leuven, Belgium. Every year, MEMTAB attracts researchers, healthcare workers, policymakers, and manufacturers actively involved in the development, evaluation or regulation of tests, (bio)markers, models, tools, apps, devices or any other modality used for the purpose of diagnosis, prognosis, risk stratification or (disease or therapy) monitoring. Read more.

“Nonregulated health care interventions” are interventions that are not directly regulated by government and, thus, subject to review of trial conduct and reporting. They include many interventions in surgery, nutrition, rehabilitation, nursing, and psychology. Previously, our team showed that among 953 trials of nonregulated interventions published in 2016 in 254 journals, prospective trial registration was required by only 11% of journals, only 20% of trials were registered prospectively, and only 3% of trials published primary outcomes consistent with prospectively registered outcomes (Azar et al., JAMA Intern Med, 2019). The new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, examined a subset of these trials that were two-arm parallel groups trials and did not describe any methods of restricting randomization to equalize the number of participants in trial arms. We found that the numbers of participants allocated to different trial arms were far closer in size than would be statistically plausible if simple randomization had occurred. In addition to Dr. Thombs, current and former team members who contributed to the study included Alex Levis, Marleine Azar, Nazanin Saadat, Kira Riehm, Tatiana Sanchez, Matt Chiovitti, Danielle Rice, Brooke Levis, Claire Fedoruk, Anita Lyubenova, Aurelio López Malo Vázquez de Lara, and Andrea Benedetti. Read more about the study here.

Researchers commonly report the percentage of participants scoring  above screening tool thresholds as the prevalence of depression, even though screening tools are designed to identify individuals who may have depression and further assessment is required to confirm whether individuals meet diagnostic criteria. In this study, led by Brooke Levis, the team combined data from 44 primary studies (9242 participants) and compared prevalence based on the PHQ-9 screening tool to prevalence based on a validated diagnostic interview for major depression, the SCID. Using the standard PHQ-9 cutoff score of ≥ 10, prevalence was 12% greater than SCID-based prevalence. No alternative PHQ-9 cutoff matched SCID prevalence consistently. Read more about the study here.

Recently, the DEPRESSD Team published their first IPD meta-analysis using the DEPRESSD-HADS database. The study, led by Yin Wu (DEPRESSD’s postdoctoral research fellow), included 15,856 participants from 73 studies (15,335 non-psychiatric medical patients, 164 partners of medical patients, and 357 healthy adults) and compared odds of major depression classification for different diagnostic interviews. It was found that controlling for HADS-D depressive symptom scores and other study and participant characteristics, there were important differences in classification probability across interviews. Among fully structured interviews designed for lay administration, the MINI classifies significantly more participants as having major depression than the CIDI. Compared with the semi-structured SCID designed for administration by a trained evaluator, CIDI is less sensitive to increases in symptom levels, and the odds of diagnosis do not increase as much as symptoms increase. Read more about the study here.

We are excited to announce that the DEPRESSD Team’s research proposal “Depression Trajectories in Pregnant and Postpartum Women: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis” was awarded an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and we ranked 1st place in a committee of 60 applications! In this project, we will use the existing DEPRESSD-EPDS database to try to describe the trajectory of major depression and identify risk factors throughout the pregnancy and postpartum period. We would like to thank our DEPRESSD Team members for their great work on the project.

We are thrilled to share that Danielle Rice, team member and PhD student, was matched through the APPIC process to her top choice for her one-year clinical psychology internship at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, Ontario. Congratulations, Danielle! 

Team member and PhD student Danielle Rice was recently interviewed by the Global News on suicide preventions for individuals with mental health issues. Danielle pointed out the importance of gathering more potential predictors for suicide risks in order to provide better support, prevention and treatments to individuals in need. To learn more, please click here.

Congratulations to Brooke Levis, who received a McGill MedStar Award for her BMJ article on the diagnostic accuracy of the PHQ-9 for screening to detect major depression. Read more about the study here, and check out the team's related web tool here.

We are thrilled to announce that SPIN-SSLED’s (Scleroderma Support group Leader EDucation) trial protocol was recently published in the Trials, and is available to all! In the near future, SPIN's patient organization partners will use this program to train and certify their support group leaders, and the SPIN team will work with them to do this. Beyond scleroderma, the SPIN-SSLED Program will be easily adaptable for use in other diseases. Check out the article through the following link: https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-019-3747-z

Dr. Thombs was honoured this weekend by induction into the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). Dr. Thombs is known for his innovative methods in developing, testing, and disseminating programs to support quality of life for people living with rare diseases, for his leadership in developing novel methods for depression screening and in preventive health care generally, and for his research on health care research methods and reporting. Check out the video here to know more about Dr. Thombs, the new member of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in the RSC. Congratulations to Dr. Thombs and the rest of the team!

We are glad to share that SPIN team’s paper entitled "Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network--Scleroderma Support group Leader EDucation (SPIN-SSLED) program: non-randomized feasibility trial" was recently published in BMJ Open. This study, led by Dr. Thombs, is the first trial to test the feasibility of delivering an education and training program via videoconference to scleroderma support group leaders. Results showed that the overall program satisfaction rating was 9.4/10 and that the support group leader outcomes increased according to the pre-post scores on 4 different outcome measures. Currently, a full-scale trial is underway to further evaluate the effectiveness of the SPIN-SSLED Program on support group leaders’ self-efficacy, burnout, emotional distress, and self-reported physical function. To learn more about the SPIN-SSLED feasibility trial, please click here. 

Congratulations to Dr. Brooke Levis! Dr. Levis successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled "Using individual participant data meta-analysis (IPDMA) to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)" on Wednesday, October 30, 2019, at McGill University. Her thesis focused on comparing diagnostic interviews for major depression classification, evaluating the accuracy of the PHQ-9 depression screening tool, and examining bias in accuracy estimates due to using data-driven procedures in small samples. Dr. Levis is currently conducting a postdoctoral fellowship in IPDMA and prediction modelling at Keele University and continues to collaborate with the DEPRESSD Project team.

Recently, the SPIN team published another paper on factors associated with patient-reported likelihood of using online self-care interventions in BMJ Open. This study, led by Dr. Linda Kwakkenbos, assessed factors that explain
responses to intervention-specific signalling items, using data of 1,060 SPIN Cohort participants. It was found that the most important factor influencing patient-reported interest in using disease-specific online self-care interventions was a general interest in using online interventions. SPIN will further explore what factors may drive this general interest, as these factors may be taken into consideration when inviting patients to try novel (online) interventions in a research context. Please click here to read more about the study.