The Fountain of Health: Bringing Seniors’ Mental Health Promotion into Clinical Practice

Abstract

BackgroundThe Fountain of Health (FoH) initiative offers valuable evidence-based mental health knowledge and provides clinicians with evaluated tools for translating knowledge into practice, in order to reduce seniors’ risks of mental disorders, including dementia.MethodsA presentation on mental health promotion and educational materials were disseminated to mental health clinicians including physicians and other allied health professionals either in-person or via tele-education through a provincial seniors’ mental health network. Measures included: 1) a tele-education quality evaluation form, 2) a knowledge transfer questionnaire, 3) a knowledge translation-to-practice evaluation tool, and 4) a quality assurance questionnaire.ResultsA total of 74 mental health clinicians received the FoH education session. There was a highly significant (p < .0001) difference in clinicians’ knowledge transfer questionnaire scores pre- and post-educational session. At a two-month follow-up, 19 (25.7%) participants completed a quality assurance questionnaire, with all 19 (100%) of respondents stating they would positively recommend the FoH information to colleagues and patients. Eleven (20.4%) translation-to-practice forms were also collected at this interval, tracking clinician use of the educational materials.ConclusionsThe use of a formalized network for knowledge transfer allows for education and evaluation of health-care practitioners in both acquisition of practical knowledge and subsequent clinical behavior change.

The Fountain of Health: effective health promotion knowledge transfer in individual primary care and group community-based formats

“…FoH is the first initiative in applied positive psychiatry to demonstrate improvements in measures of well-being in older adults. FoH utilizes key approaches for successful KT: a supportive environment; content that is practice-based, high quality, and relevant to recipients; and effective facilitation appropriate to recipients (Malone et al , 2002; Bosma et al , 2011; Thoo et al , 2015). Present findings are consistent with the demonstration by Thoo et al (2015) of highly significant differences in individual patients’ knowledge and application of FoH in setting health goals as delivered by clinicians supported by a provincial KT network.…”

“…Two distinct KT methods in FoH are those delivered by (1) frontline care clinicians to individual patients (Thoo et al , 2015) and by (2) lay leaders to participants in community-based groups (Gough and Cassidy, 2017). Both FoH KT methods appear promising: Thoo et al (2015) reported highly significant differences in pre- and post-intervention scores of individual patients’ knowledge and application of FoH. Similarly, Gough and Cassidy (2017) found significant differences in pre- and post-scores on measures of knowledge and outlook, and confidence in goal-setting among participants in group settings.…”

Promoting Health Behavior Change in Canada: A Quality Improvement Project Integrating Prevention and Wellness in Frontline Care

“…The Brain Health and Wellness (BHW) project was a Canadian positive psychiatry quality improvement (QI) project based on a pilot study conducted in the province of Nova Scotia in Canada that demonstrated the effectiveness of the FoH HBC tools [18] [19]. The BHW project was co-led by the Canadian Coalition for Seniors' Mental Health (CCSMH) [30] and the Fountain of Health [31].…”

“…The Fountain of Health (FoH) is a Canadian positive psychiatry initiative that incorporates evidence-based tools to influence HBC, well-being, and health attitudes [18] [19] by incorporating S.M.A.R.T. goal setting [20] [21].…”

“…This is the first initiative of which we are aware to nationally scale effective HBC methods in frontline care to promote patients' health and well-being. The methods used captured not only the impact of HBC education on clinicians' practice [18], but also on patients' health behaviors and attitudes, representing a novel contribution to knowledge translation literature in psychiatry. This project also offers an innovative, positive psychiatry, public health approach to promote successful aging and well-being [29].…”