Background

The seven-year larger project is an implementation study that aims to explore the implementation and adaptation of an integrated evidence-informed mental health intervention model – Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment – Linking Youth and “Xin” (hearts) (ACE-LYNX) with the goal of enhancing the capacity of the existing health and social service professionals and therefore their contribution to mental health care for university students in Jinan, China. Specifically, it examines the implementation of an evidence-based intervention, ACE-LYNX, to: (1) decrease stigma (attitude), (2) increase mental health literacy (knowledge), and (3) promote individual well-being (outcomes) and the collective capacity to collaborate (action) to promote mental health and form an integrative network of care for students. The project team includes three clusters: Implementation (IMP) Cluster, Data Collection and Analysis (DCA) Cluster, and Integrative Knowledge Transfer (IKT) Cluster. Dr. Ka Tat Tsang, as the Co-Principal Investigator, leads the IKT Cluster, working in tandem with Dr. Josephine Pui-Hing Wong from Toronto Metropolitan University, the Principal Investigator, and the other clusters to evaluate and document the process of intervention implementation and resultant knowledge uptake to transform existing health and social service professional resource into expanded capacity in mental health care for university students in China.

Objectives

  • To examine the adaptation, adoption, and effectiveness of the intervention, ACE-LYNX, in Jinan, China

  • To examine the implementation process and develop knowledge that enhances the implementation and scale up of community mental health intervention and practices to other universities across China, and other contexts similar to China

Guiding research questions

  • What are the diverging and converging understanding of mental health and mental health care across academic/professional disciplines and socio-cultural-political geographical locations, and how are these diverse ways of knowing negotiated, transferred in the implementation process?

  • What, how, and under what conditions implementation strategies work to enhance/diminish the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of an intervention/practice?

  • What, how, and under what conditions will enhance/deter the collaborative knowledge production among diverse stakeholders – community organizations, individual partners, university researchers, policy makers, and knowledge users?

Project Details

  • Funding

    The larger project is co-funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

  • Methodology

    We work on the research data from the DCA Cluster, for example, baseline data from the contextual analysis, fidelity checklists, participants evaluation form, pre- and post-training surveys, and 6-months post focus group. Additionally, a member from the Canadian IKT Cluster visits China in three different points in time – beginning, middle, and termination – to conduct in-depth interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders involved in this implementation study, adopting the grounded theory approach.

  • Project Stages

    It is the sixth year of the project. We have collected required data for the beginning and middle stages (including 6 interviews and 5 focus groups), and will collect the data for termination stage near the end of the large project. Currently, the Canadian IKT Cluster is working on both quantitative and qualitative data analysis.