Key Messages

• Risk for COVID-19 is elevated in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) or chronic kidney disease (CKD), who are also at increased risk for psychological distress, social isolation, and decreased quality of life.
• vCHAT (social network support and automated digital counseling) uses internet or smart phones to provide participants with access to chat rooms and weekly webcast presentations or group discussions by health professionals and patient representatives, and to automated digital counseling resources.
• We hypothesize that repeated assessments over this 12-month study will demonstrate that vCHAT improves mental health and quality of life, while decreasing loneliness and perceived social isolation.

Lay Summary

Our team obtained final approval from the research ethics board of our host institution, the University Health Network, in early January 2021. Since that time, we have initiated recruitment at the UHN in both Nephrology and Cardiology. In addition, we have been working with our colleagues at Sunnybrook Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Women’s College Hospital, and the Ottawa Hospital, and we are in the final stage of obtaining ethics approval to recruit patients in the Cardiology and/or Nephrology clinics at those sites. We expect to have more detailed information about our progress and anecdotal patient comments re. our digital-social network intervention in the next quarterly report.

Author(s)

• Nominated Principal Applicant: Robert Nolan, PhD, C.Psych., Director, Cardiac eHealth and Behavioural Cardiology Research Unit, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network

Population

Chronic Disease and/or Mental Illness

Language

To ensure the rapid dissemination of this critical information, information is published in the language in which it was submitted. Please contact us for French or English translations.