The medical team at the Asthma Centre at St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario is dedicated to providing the best care for its patients. Extensive investigations at the clinic have revealed that many patients present with functional dyspnea, the experience of breathlessness without an identifiable cause. Despite its undetectable organic pathology, those affected by functional dyspnea have a decreased quality of life. Unfortunately, the medical sphere is ill-equipped to provide treatment for patients whose symptoms do not have an identifiable origin.

The proposed research project will assess psychiatric patients shortly before hospital discharge and then conduct follow-up assessments once a month in the community for three months. Assessment will include data collected from interviews as well as file reviews and will focus on the effect of patient perceptions on therapeutic and adverse outcomes.

Clinical depression is common among workers and leads to significant personal and economic burden. Previous research has shown that almost a third of workers presenting to Interlock, an Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP), reported symptoms of depression. Although all clients show significant improvement after EFAP intervention, depressed clients continued to have higher scores on work impairment and work absence than clients seeking help for other concerns.

The objective of the proposed project is to examine how users respond to the web links of familiar and unfamiliar brands when they are displayed at different locations in the search result pages in partnership with Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc, a privately held search engine marketing firm headquartered in Kelowna, BC. Participants will be asked to conduct a number of guided internet searches, searches for which they are provided the search terms.