News
Professor Antonina Mikocka-Walus from the Deakin Lifespan Institute will lead a new project that will explore co-designing, evaluating and implementing supportive care for young people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
The project, ‘Care for Adolescents and Young Adults with Crohn’s and Colitis and their carers’ has been awarded $2,614,203.80 in Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Clinical Trials Activity Grant funding.
Challenging conditions
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (types of IBD) are incurable and life-limiting gastrointestinal disorders, with peak onset at between 15-29 years of age. Symptoms can be unpredictable and debilitating, involving abdominal pain, bloody diarrhoea, frequent bowel movements (up to 30 per day), fatigue and anaemia.
Adolescents and young adults face the burden of IBD at a critical stage of life. It can disrupt growth, puberty, education and psychosocial development, with over 50% of those with IBD reporting psychological distress.
These conditions are notoriously difficult to manage in youth, with existing treatments failing to induce remission in nearly 70% of cases, yet IBD is the only chronic condition with no government funding for patient support over the last ten years.
A new approach
Across five years, the multidisciplinary research team will evaluate whether a psychological and restorative movement and nutritional program can improve youth and carer quality of life and mental health.
We’ll provide evidence-based multidisciplinary care in a largely-online environment. This ensures equitable access, especially for those living outside metropolitan areas. It has the potential to transform care in youth, supporting this vulnerable group to live healthier, longer lives.
Professor Mikocka-Walus
The initial phase of the project will adapt existing evidence-based programs to create a new approach by way of a co-design process, working with young people with IBD, parents, carers and health professionals.
This multimodal digital program will integrate psychological therapies, restorative therapies (yoga, nature-based approaches), movement modules (surf therapy, physical activity) and nutrition education.
Looking to the long-term
The team will then evaluate the success of their program in comparison to the typical care pathways. This will include the impact on patient and carer quality of life and mental health, whether the approach is cost-effective, and identify key factors for effective implementation in real-world settings going forward.
‘Our co-design approach will ensure that consumers are able to inform interventions that best suit their needs,’ says Professor Mikocka-Walus.
By improving the timeliness, accessibility and integration of care once embedded into practice, we hope to see better health outcomes across a range of areas for this cohort and their support systems.
Professor Mikocka-Walus
The multidisciplinary team includes Deakin researchers Associate Professor Subhadra Evans, Professor Liliana Orellana, Associate Professor Lisa Olive, Associate Professor Elizabeth Westrupp, Associate Professor Melissa O’Shea, Dr Dave Skvarc, Associate Professor Nikki McCaffrey, Dr Anna Klas, Dr Emma Marshall, alongside Associate Professor Simon Knowles (Swinburne University), Associate Professor Ed Giles (Monash Children’s Hospital), Dr Emma Halmos (Monash University), Leanne Raven (Crohn’s & Colitis Australia) and Associate Professor Leesa Van Niekerk (University of Tasmania).
Republished under a Creative Commons 4.0 license. Read the original article here.