Victoria Times-Colonist – UBC student wins national research honours

University of British Columbia researcher Emily Morris is being recognized nationally

for her work in linking stigmatized attitudes toward mental illness by medical professionals with a higher risk of psychiatric disorders in patients with a rare genetic condition.

“I feel very honoured and privileged to be receiving it,” Morris, 28, said of the Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation-Masters that she will receive in Ottawa on Tuesday. “It was a happy surprise.”

Mitacs is a national, private, not-for-profit organization that partners with companies, government and academia to promote Canadian research and training. Morris is one of five Mitacs award winners nationally chosen from thousands of researchers who take part in Mitacs programs each year.

Morris, a master’s student in genetic counselling at UBC, is being cited for her research into the relationship between mental health stigma and how medical professionals, particularly medical geneticists, treat patients with a genetic condition called 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, which affects about one in 4,000 people.

Morris’s work proposes a strategy for improving outcomes for patients through early treatment of psychiatric disorders. Her work involved surveying about 300 doctors inCanada and the U.S. to determine how often they discuss the increased risk of psychiatric disorders when counselling patients with the disorder.

Earlier research showed patients and their families were well informed about other possible aspects of the syndrome—such as heart and palate defects, immune problems and learning disabilities — but less informed about psychiatric risks, including theincreased risk of developing schizophrenia or psychosis.

Morris’s study found that doctors with higher levels of stigma toward mental illness were less likely to discuss the risk of psychiatric disorders with their patients, especially when the diagnosis is made in childhood.

As such, parents are more likely to miss the early warning signs of mental illness and delay seeking treatment.

“It’s really important for psychiatric disorders to get early intervention and early treatment as soon as symptoms arrive,” Morris said.University of British Columbia