Not-for-profit benefits provider has just launched Mindfulness Program
Mental illness has become a pressing issue in the life and health space, with providers pouring resources into addressing the problem. Joining them is Canada’s only not-for-profit health and dental benefits specialist, Green Shield Canada (GSC), which has just launched its own digital mental health prevention program. The GSC Mindfulness Program is now available free of charge to plan members via the firm’s Change4Life® health portal.
Peter Gove, GSC’s health innovation leader, explains why this initiative has the potential to really make a difference in people’s lives.
“We know that there is a significant increase in anxiety going on, especially among younger people,” he says. “The suicide rate among teenage girls is at a 40-year high. With mindfulness practise, there is good evidence that it actually helps people manage their stress and anxiety better.”
Offered through the Change4Life portal, those that complete the six-session Mindfulness Training Program will be awarded bonus points, with a grand prize awarded in 2018.
Mindfulness is described on the Mindful.org site as the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. The leadership at Green Shield believe such reflection will prove especially useful to those where medication isn’t an effective solution.
“We looked at medication a lot, and one of the issues is that it works well for people that are quite sick, but the evidence suggests it is not much more than a placebo for folks that aren’t pretty sick,” he says. “Because access to things like mindfulness or psychotherapy is so hard in Canada, physicians don’t have a whole lot of options for their patients, so they tend to prescribe anti-depressants.”
The GSC Mindfulness Program is therefore targeted at those experiencing mild to moderate stress, helping them to manage their daily lives better. It’s an ambitious move by Green Shield, with more on the way in 2018, explains Gove.
“We are working on a study of depression prevention intervention that they have been working on at the University of Ottawa and Royal Ottawa Hospital,” he says. “We are hoping to develop a controlled trial of this intervention.
There is an assessment tool that allows us to identify people at high risk of depression that have not had it yet. It will identify those people, engage them in a program, and see if we can actually reduce their risk.”
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Peter Gove, GSC’s health innovation leader, explains why this initiative has the potential to really make a difference in people’s lives.
“We know that there is a significant increase in anxiety going on, especially among younger people,” he says. “The suicide rate among teenage girls is at a 40-year high. With mindfulness practise, there is good evidence that it actually helps people manage their stress and anxiety better.”
Offered through the Change4Life portal, those that complete the six-session Mindfulness Training Program will be awarded bonus points, with a grand prize awarded in 2018.
Mindfulness is described on the Mindful.org site as the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. The leadership at Green Shield believe such reflection will prove especially useful to those where medication isn’t an effective solution.
“We looked at medication a lot, and one of the issues is that it works well for people that are quite sick, but the evidence suggests it is not much more than a placebo for folks that aren’t pretty sick,” he says. “Because access to things like mindfulness or psychotherapy is so hard in Canada, physicians don’t have a whole lot of options for their patients, so they tend to prescribe anti-depressants.”
The GSC Mindfulness Program is therefore targeted at those experiencing mild to moderate stress, helping them to manage their daily lives better. It’s an ambitious move by Green Shield, with more on the way in 2018, explains Gove.
“We are working on a study of depression prevention intervention that they have been working on at the University of Ottawa and Royal Ottawa Hospital,” he says. “We are hoping to develop a controlled trial of this intervention.
There is an assessment tool that allows us to identify people at high risk of depression that have not had it yet. It will identify those people, engage them in a program, and see if we can actually reduce their risk.”
Related stories:
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Ex-med student suffering from mental illness accuses RBC of discrimination
