Shannon Jones

Biography:

Shannon Jones PhD is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Calgary and a Registered Clinical Psychologist at the Addiction Centre, Foothills Medical Centre and in private practice. At the Addiction Centre, she is responsible for carrying out yearly program evaluations for both the adolescent and adult teams, quality improvement research and initiatives, and supervision of undergraduate students in gaining research experience (e.g., Honours theses in psychology). Clinically, she conducts specialized psychological assessments for the purposes of differential diagnosis and making treatment recommendations and supervises graduate students in psychological assessment. In private practice, she provides psychotherapy to individuals with a range of clinical disorders and problems, including anxiety and mood disorders, addictive behaviours, health anxiety, and insomnia. Dr. Jones also has a strong interest in increasing accessibility to mental health services and has completed research and consultation work in the development and implementation of online therapy.

Node Funded Project (December 2020)

Title: Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients being treated for addiction and mental health concerns at a concurrent disorders outpatient program

Principal Investigator: Shannon Jones, University of Calgary

Co-investigators/collaborators:

Dr. Kristina Brache, Emily Bedford, Dana Watts

Description:

The Addiction Centre is a multidisciplinary outpatient treatment program located at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, AB that provides treatment to adults and adolescents with concurrent mental health and addictive disorders. This CRISM-funded project aims to better understand the current impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our patients and families, as well as learn about the experiences of transitioning to primarily telehealth services for assessment, individual, family, and group therapy, and physician/psychiatric consultations during the pandemic. Our goal is to discern how the restriction on face-to-face services has impacted our patients, how we can improve the experience of telehealth for this population, and determine if and how this modality of care should be integrated into ongoing addiction and mental health services in the future, beyond the current pandemic. Clinicians and physicians at the Addiction Centre will also be surveyed about their experiences with the rapid transition to telehealth, the benefits and challenges of providing treatment for concurrent disorders using this modality, and whether training or other resources could be helpful to frontline clinicians in providing care virtually to this clinical population. We aim to provide recommendations to the CRISM community based on the qualitative feedback and quantitative results of our surveys.