Exploring Mental health Barriers in Emergency Rooms (EMBER)
Overview
The EMBER Study is a multi-phase research initiative aimed at understanding, reducing, and addressing stigma. The study, funded by the Calgary Health Foundation, examines stigma across individual, interpersonal, and structural levels, and develops evidence-based interventions to improve patient and provider experiences.
Study Phases
- Goal: Understand stigma across multiple levels
- Examine patient experiences, provider attitudes, and behaviours
- Identify key challenges in emergency mental health care
- Methods:
- Interviews
- Focus groups
- Surveys
- Goal: Identify structural contributors to stigma
- Review hospital and health authority policies
- Examine system-level barriers and inequities in care
- Goal: Develop stigma-reduction strategies
- Identify and adapt evidence-based interventions
- Design implementation and evaluation frameworks
- Goal: Test interventions in practice
- Implement interventions with healthcare staff
- Track outcomes over time (baseline → 12 months)
- Incorporate patient and family feedback
- Pilot the SCHCS evaluation
- Goal: Integrate findings across phases
- Analyze quantitative and qualitative data
- Develop system-level recommendations
- Produce final report
- Goal: Promote uptake and sustainability
- Share findings across healthcare systems
- Develop training curriculum and resources
- Scale successful interventions
Individuals to Systems: Methodological and Conceptual Considerations for Addressing Mental Illness Stigma Holistically
Mental illness stigma operates at multiple levels, from individual attitudes and behaviours to the policies, practices, and cultures that shape healthcare systems. This work outlines a comprehensive approach to understanding and reducing stigma in healthcare by examining both interpersonal and structural factors.
Through the EMBER (Exploring Mental Health Barriers in Emergency Rooms) study, researchers, healthcare providers, leaders, patients, and families work together to identify barriers, co-design solutions, and evaluate strategies that improve mental healthcare experiences and outcomes. A key feature of this approach is the active partnership of people with lived experience, ensuring that stigma-reduction efforts are meaningful, person-centred, and sustainable.