A patient engagement researcher will once again be returning to Williams Lake to hear from anyone living with Crohn’s disease and or Ulcerative Colitis.
Sandra Zelinsky will be in the lake city on Saturday, Sept. 14.
“The previous focus group was some work I was doing with the Nova Scotia IBD collaboration group, so with a gastroenterologist out of Nova Scotia,” she said.
“This a different project. We have some support through some clinician and nurse practitioners out of the University of Calgary, and with this project this is more of a patient-led peer to peer type of research project that is looking at what matters most to patients who live with Crohn’s disease and or Ulcerative Colitis when making decisions around treatment options.”
Zelinsky who will also be leading focus groups in Calgary and Toronto said the information and discussions that come from the focus groups will help in the development of a patient informed national survey.
“So it’s really the patient’s voice and perspective guiding the survey, and then in the end in the big picture hopefully this will help to improve shared decision making with clinicians and patients.”
Anyone who is interested in attending can text or call Zelinsky at 250-706-8654.
“It would be great to have people from both the Quesnel and 100 Mile House area to join us as well,” Zelinsky added.
“If we have people that live with Crohn’s Disease and or Ulcerative Colitis that are from out of town and are interested in attending the focus group in Williams Lake, we can help cover their mileage but they need to get in touch with me first.”
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are the most common types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes ongoing inflammation of the intestines according to HealthLinkBC.