MIRA - Gastrointestinal Society

Living with gastrointestinal and liver diseases and disorders, and/or obesity, can be a challenging journey, often accompanied with confusion, uncertainty, and isolation. Beyond the physical symptoms, many individuals also grapple with mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. Some face shame and stigma resulting from misinformation and gaps in awareness on the disease and its impacts to a person’s quality of life. Conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (primarily Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis), gastroparesis, irritable bowel syndrome, eosinophilic esophagitis, liver disease, obesity, and infections such as Clostridioides difficile are often associated with mental health disorders.

If you are looking for mental health support and services, say hi to MIRA (Machine Intelligence Resource Assistant), a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help you find information, programs, and services on mental health. It is free to use and all the resources it provides are of high-quality and vetted by a multi-disciplinary Expert Advisory Committee. The purpose of MIRA is to improve lives through a patient-centred, integrated, accessible, and efficient mental health navigation system that can support all Canadians regardless of where they are on the continuum of care.

We thank Mood Disorders Society of Canada (MDSC) and their project partners and sponsors for developing MIRA, and for collaborating with us so we can share the tool on our website. The MDSC is a registered charity dedicated to giving people living with mood disorders a united voice to improve quality of life, access to treatments, contribute to research, and more.