The DAREMOS and PROCARE initiatives, in collaboration with other national and international universities, social agents (COPOE and AMTAES) and government (INJUVE), seek to help schoolchildren between 12 and 17 years of age at risk of suffering from anxiety and depression free of charge.
World Mental Health Day is commemorated tomorrow, October 10th.
9/10/2020.- Researchers from the University of Jaén (UJA) and members of the PROEM Network lead the DAREMOS and PROCARE projects, which aim to detect and treat adolescents at high risk of developing and suffering emotional problems.
On the one hand, the DAREMOS project (Detection of adolescents at high risk of emotional problems: exploring the role of epigenetics and language for prevention indicated in mental health) aims to help adolescents at high risk of developing emotional problems through a study in collaboration with secondary schools in the provinces of Jaén and Málaga that request it.
This study will be carried out online due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its sample will be formed by students from 12 to 17 years old. “That age range coincides with the period of central incidence of anxiety, depression and substance use problems, which constitute the highest individual and social burden in all mental health difficulties,” says Luis Joaquín García, professor at the UJA and main responsible for both projects.
Participating adolescents will voluntarily submit to an online survey through a virtual platform. Subsequently, they will be interviewed individually, also online, and will be given the option of collecting a saliva sample through salivary expulsion, if their parents and they themselves authorize it. In this way, not only psychosocial aspects will be considered, but also the role of both the language used by adolescents and epigenetics.
Meanwhile, the PROCARE project (Selective prevention through a transdiagnostic intervention for adolescents at risk of emotional problems) is the continuation of DAREMOS. Its objective is to design, implement and evaluate those users at risk through a selective preventive intervention.
PROCARE, which will also be developed in educational centers in Catalonia and the Valencian Community, will be the first selective prevention program aimed at people at risk of anxiety and depression. “This fact represents an important innovation, since most selective interventions are aimed at young people at risk of developing anxiety or depression, individually, despite the fact that comorbidity is present in up to 75% of adolescents and that both mental conditions share key risk factors,” details Luis Joaquín García.
The primary stratifications that will be carried out in PROCARE for the classification of users will be done according to known risk and protective factors for emotional problems (anxiety and depression), which will allow for a more personalized intervention. “For the first time, a transdiagnostic approach will be tested using complementary modules to address the identified risk factors,” the professor points out.
The DAREMOS project began this October and will run until January 2021. It is funded by the FEDER-Andalusia program and involves, in addition to Luis Joaquín García, researchers from the Department of Psychology at UJA, Lourdes Espinosa and José Antonio Muela, as well as Mª Belén Díez, from the Department of English Philology, and Arturo Montejo, from the Department of Computer Science and member of the UJA spin-off YottaCode, together with Juan Miguel Gómez, researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Málaga (IBIMA/FIMABIS).
As for PROCARE, it will run from the end of January 2021 to June 2021 thanks to funding obtained by the Ministry of Science and Innovation. Its working team is formed by Luis Joaquín López, José Antonio Muela, Lourdes Espinosa and Mª del Mar Díaz, from the Department of Psychology at the UJA, Josefa Canals, Professor of Psychology at the Rovira i Virgili University, José Antonio Piqueras, Professor at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche, and Jill Ehrenreich-May, Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami (USA).
The Instituto de la Juventud (INJUVE) of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, AMTAES the Spanish Association of Mutual Help against Social Phobia and Anxiety Disorders (AMTAES) and the Confederation of Organizations of Psychopedagogy and Guidance of Spain (COPOE) are part of the External Advisory Board of both projects.
The DAREMOS project (1260378) has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento de la Junta de Andalucía.
