Health Impacts
Another way of measuring the return on investment of health research is looking at health impacts. Health indicators and metrics fall into a number of subgroups representing health status, determinants of health, and health system change indicators. SHRF relies on the Health Quality Council’s Quality Insight web site as a source of information, where these - and many more - quality of care indicators are publicly reported. The Health Quality Council (HQC) is an independent agency that measures and reports on quality of care in Saskatchewan, promotes improvement, and engages its partners in building a better health system.
SHRF supports excellent research with the aim to contribute to improved quality of life, patient care and health service delivery. Click on the following link to view Saskatchewan specific health indicators http://www.qualityinsight.ca/.
Story
Dr. Nancy Gyurcsik
Promoting Physical Activity for People With Arthritis
There are obvious barriers to physical activity for people in all walks of life – lack of motivation, poor weather conditions, time restrictions. But there are also less obvious constraints, those that are specific to a certain population. Will identifying those hurdles make them easier to leap? Will understanding those challenges encourage people to overcome them?
It is this type of thinking that is leading Dr. Nancy Gyurcsik to explore the barriers to physical activity among people who live with arthritis. “I want to get an even better understanding of not only the traditional barriers, but the more specific factors that have to do with arthritis and that could also influence their activity,” says Gyurcsik. She intends to examine variables extending from arthritis pain intensity to pain acceptance, to determine the influence they have on activity levels.
Gyurcsik is applying for project funding, with co-investigators Dr. Larry Brawley and Dr. Kevin Spink, to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Their success thus far has stemmed from parallel lines of research: an earlier study of physical activity promotion in people with arthritis, under a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the development of an innovative approach to promoting physical activity in first-year university students, under a two-year New Investigator Establishment Grant awarded from SHRF in 2005-06.
“We were the first to show that beyond the similar barriers we all have to being active, there are unique ones to particular populations,” says Gyurcsik. “I would say that was the key contribution as a result of the grant.”
Gyurcsik’s research under the SHRF grant aimed at promoting physical activity in first year university students because she noted, “It was a key transition point in younger persons’ lives where physical activity declines.” The first year of the grant explored what made it challenging for these young people to participate in regular physical activity, while the second part of the project included the creation of an intervention program to help young people become more active.
Two groups of female first year university students were assembled. Both received twice-weekly instruction on using the U of S Fit Centre and being active. The first group received no other guidance, becoming the control group. The second also learned to identify their unique barriers and had opportunities to talk about ways to manage them. They also discussed the benefits of scheduling a regular activity and continuing it independently, after the program.
The activity levels of both groups were tracked over the six-week period of the program and for an additional three months. The research indicated that it is not enough to make physical activity programs available to first year students; it is also necessary to provide the psychological tools required to be active on their own.
Gyurcsik is now applying her findings to her research on the unique barriers to physical activity for people with arthritis. By applying the same principles, she hopes to identify their specific conflicts, then to overcome them. Through a process that builds
the psychological skills of the participants and allows them to be more active, Gyurcsik believes she can improve the lives of people living with arthritis.
