Youth Psychiatry

Dr. Martine Flament and Youth Research Unit

The IMHR Youth Research Unit was initiated in January 2003. The main areas of research are the eating disorders (ED), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), other anxiety disorders, and mood disorders in children and adolescents. The unit aims at identifying the risk and resilience factors involved in the onset and maintenance of these disorders, and investigating the mechanisms of action of effective treatments. Research is community-based (e.g., study of risk and protective factors for eating and weight disorders in high school students) or based on the assessment and treatment of referred patients (e.g., biological and psychological correlates of anxiety disorders in adolescents; effects of anti-obsessional medication on executive functions, metacognition and regional brain activations). Through collaboration with international agencies -- World Psychiatric Association (WPA), World Health Organization (WHO), the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM - Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale). The unit also investigates and promotes evidence-based treatment and prevention strategies for mental disorders in children and adolescents.

Within the University of Ottawa Department of Psychiatry, the Youth Research Unit has developed working links with the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which includes both the ROH Clinical Youth Program and the Psychiatric Services at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). The Youth Research Unit welcomes and tutors graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Ottawa and Carleton Schools of Psychology.

Dr. Flament has recently received funding from a variety of sources including, as principal investigator, the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at CHEO, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, the University Medical Research Fund (UMRF), and, as co-investigator, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), with Drs. Matheson and Anisman at Carleton University and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), with Dr. Schneider at the University of Ottawa.

For more information on the University of Ottawa IMHR Youth Research Unit please contact Atif Kukaswadia, Research Coordinator, at 613-722-6521 ext. 7193 or by email at atif.kukaswadia@rohcg.on.ca..

For a list of on-going studies currently recruiting participants, please visit our Study Participation page.