The Centre for Depression and Suicide Studies is the largest depression and suicide research network in Canada, and facilitates a number of biomarker studies aimed at improving our understanding of depression and suicide, and improving clinical practice. These clinical studies involve collecting and integrating diverse types of data, including clinical outcomes, genetic and functional genomic markers, brain imaging, and mobile health data. Anticipated outcomes from this research stream include:
Our researchers also test the efficacy of new interventions for suicide and depression, and they are discovering new treatments for suicide risk and treatment-resistant depression using novel technologies, such as zebrafish high-throughput screening.
The Centre has quality improvement initiatives aimed at delivering the best care possible. This includes a project on quality improvement of suicide management in the emergency department, and an innovative group therapy intervention, Skills for Safer Living (SfSL), created for those who have attempted suicide more than once.
Many of our researchers are also active clinicians, including psychiatrists and suicide interventionists, who provide individual counseling, crisis support, pharmacotherapy management and other healthcare services through the St. Michael’s Hospital’s Mental Health and Addictions Unit. By bridging the clinical and research worlds, our clinician-scientists further help to drive research with health care impact.
