Dr. Caroline Temcheff

Dr. Temcheff is an Associate Professor in Counselling Psychology at McGill University and a Quebec Research Scholar (Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé, Chercheur Boursier Junior 1). Directly in line with the priorities and strategic plan of the Ministère de la santé et des services sociaux (MSSS), the overarching goal of Dr. Temcheff’s research programme is to identify pathways and mechanisms which link childhood conduct problems in girls and boys to developmental trajectories of medical service utilization and mental health problems (particularly depression and addiction) from childhood through to early adulthood. Her programme of research has three primary research objectives.

The first objective is to establish trajectories of medical service utilization and costs between childhood and adolescence of boys and girls with and without conduct problems. The second objective is to identify risk and protective factors associated with and pathways leading to variations in the medical service utilization and mental health trajectories. The third objective is to identify pathways towards depression and addictions in late adolescence and early adulthood among boys and girls with childhood histories of conduct problems.

Ultimately, the aim of this programme of research is to establish information on risk and protective factors which could lead to the design of more focused preventive interventions targeting individual vulnerabilities or contextual factors linked to patterns of increased medical service usage among boys and girls with conduct problems as well as identifying critical developmental periods during which the intensification of interventions might be able to prevent patterns of increased and costly medical service usage. Additionally, better knowledge of the pathways leading to comorbidities of conduct problems, depression and addictive problems in girls compared to boys would allow for the identification of gender-sensitive targets for prevention for these major mental health problems which may, in turn, reduce associated medical service use and costs.