Professor, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University
Dr. Thombs is a Senior Investigator in the Division of Psychiatry Research and an Associate Member of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Community Studies at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital. He is a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Department of Psychiatry, with Associate Memberships in the Departments of Medicine; Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health; Psychology; Educational and Counselling Psychology; and the Biomedical Ethics Unit.
Dr. Thombs has authored more than 300 articles, including more than 270 peer-reviewed articles. He is the principal investigator or a co-investigator on numerous grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Fonds de la recherche Québec - santé (FRQ-S), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and private organizations, including the Arthritis Society, Scleroderma Canada, and provincial scleroderma patient organizations.
Awards that Dr. Thombs or teams he has led have received in recognition of the team’s work include the Cochrane Collaboration’s Bill Silverman Prize, the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine’s Research Award, the Association of Rheumatology Health Professional’s Distinguished Scholar Award, Researcher Salary Awards (Junior I, Junior II, Senior) from the FRQ-S, an Arthritis Society Salary Award, the Jewish General Hospital Award for Excellence in Clinical Research, the Canadian Psychological Association Health Psychology Section Early Career Award, the Canadian Psychological Association’s President’s New Researcher Award, an American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation Health Professional Investigator Award, and a CIHR New Investigator Award, Dr. Thombs was the lead author of an international team that published an article on depression screening in cardiovascular care settings, which was a finalist for the 2009 BMJ Group Research Paper of the Year Award. In 2014, he was one of two recipients of the inaugural version of the McGill Principal’s Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researchers, which is awarded to McGill’s top investigators within 10 years of their highest degree from any of its 13 faculties and schools. Dr. Thombs is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.
Major Research Activities
Dr. Thombs is internationally known for his work for (1) developing, testing, and disseminating educational, self-management, rehabilitation, and psychological interventions for people living with the rare autoimmune disease scleroderma; (2) his work on depression screening and the evaluation of depression screening tools; and (3) meta-research, which involves examining how the design, conduct and reporting of medical research may lead to bias. Dr. Thombs is Director of the Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN) and Director of the DEPRESsion Screening Data (DEPRESSD) Project.
Recent Publications
Thombs BD, Turner KA, Shrier I. Defining and evaluating overdiagnosis in mental health: a meta-research review. Psychother Psychosom. 2019;88(4):193-202.
Azar M, Riehm K, Saadat N, Sanchez T, Chiovitti M, Qi L, Rice DB, Levis B, Fedoruk C, Levis AW, Kloda LA, Kimmelman J, Benedetti A, Thombs BD. Journal registration policies and association with prospective registration in published randomized trials of non-regulated healthcare Interventions: a cross-sectional study. JAMA Intern Med. 2019;179(5):624-632.
Levis B, Benedetti A, Thombs BD, DEPRESsion Screening Data (DEPRESSD) Collaboration. The diagnostic accuracy of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for detecting major depression: an individual participant data meta-analysis. BMJ. 2019;365:l1476.
Thombs BD, Kwakkenbos L, Levis AW, Benedetti A. Addressing overestimation of the prevalence of depression prevalence based on self-report screening questionnaires. CMAJ. 2018;190:E44-49.