Nicole Sheridan has been a Research Coordinator at the CHEO Research Institute since 2018. Nicole’s currently research activities focus on improving mental health outcomes for patients and caregivers, addressing gaps within the mental health and emergency health system, and exploring the role of fatigue in medical education. Her main area of research includes coordinating the BRAVA Study – a randomized controlled trial evaluating the BRAVA intervention which is a brief, novel group intervention for adolescents with suicidal ideation and their caregivers.
Research Projects
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Meeting the service needs of youth with and without a self-reported mental health diagnosis during COVID-19
01/05/2023
The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced multiple, co-occurring stressors for youth, such as drastic changes to their daily routines, social interactions, and educational conditions (1,2). Relative to other life stages, adolescence is a critical period of social and emotional development (3), and one in which mental health (MH) and substance use disorders are more likely to emerge in the face of overwhelming change (4). For many youth, it seems that the MH impacts from COVID-19 have been detrimental (5–8). For others, their MH may not have changed, or even improved, due to fewer social or school-related pressures or increases in family bonding (9–12). For youth with existing MH concerns, diagnoses or risk factors, the MH effects of the pandemic may have been especially harmful (9,13,14), particularly for those whose access to services has been discontinued or disrupted (13).
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Pediatric emergency department physicians’ perceptions of virtual mental health assessments for urgent needs
07/02/2023
While many physicians agreed that there is a potential benefit of the ED virtual care platform for urgent mental health assessments, time constraints and lack of confidence in providing satisfactory virtual mental health care with minimal mental health support limited its acceptability. These findings can inform the future implementation of mental health services using an innovative virtual ED platform.
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Building Resilience and Attachment in Vulnerable Adolescents: A Pilot Trial of a Brief Group Intervention for Adolescents with Mild to Moderate Suicidal Ideation and their Caregivers
11/11/2022
Study results demonstrate that the BRAVA intervention has the potential to reduce SI among adolescents who present to hospital services in crisis. Further studies are required to establish BRAVA's efficacy in a randomized controlled trial.
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Parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: The sociodemographic and mental health factors associated with maternal caregiver strain
03/01/2022
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new stressors for parents (“caregivers”) that may affect their own and their child’s mental health (MH). We explored self-reported levels of caregiver strain (parents’ perceived ability to meet parenting demands), and the MH and sociodemographic factors of caregivers to identify predictors of strain that can be used to guide MH service delivery for families.