05/05/2022 - 12:45
Citizen science. The initiative of the Open Systems group of the UB and the Mental Health Federation of Catalonia aims to learn about and strengthen social support networks in this area of health.
Emotional well-being does not only depend on us; the people around us who constitute our social support network also play a key role in our mental health. With the aim of finding out how these networks work and strengthening them, the Open Systems research group at the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Mental Health Federation of Catalonia have created CoActuem per la Salut Mental (CoAct for Mental Health), the first citizen science chatbot to increase knowledge of people's social support networks and improve them.
Social support networks in mental health are those that are generated informally between people, whatever their mental condition. CoActuem per la Salut Mental needs to collect data to obtain scientific results that can guide the taking of specific measures and improve the functioning of social support networks in mental health in Catalonia.
People with their own experience in mental health and their family environments are the main actors in the research, as co-researchers. With them, a digital conversation has been created in the form of a Telegram chatbot, the first to be used for citizen science research. Through a completely anonymous and secure communication with the chatbot, participants can contribute their unique and singular point of view, and at a later stage they can get involved in the collective interpretation of the data if they wish to do so.
“Mental health support networks involve everyone, including caregivers, but also family members, friends or anyone in our neighbourhood,” explains Josep Perelló, scientific coordinator of the project. “All the people we relate to are part of it and that is why it is important to gather all perspectives and all life experiences”, he adds.
Today, the chatbot already has more than 500 registered participants, but in order to obtain the most robust scientific results possible, greater participation is needed to gather the widest possible range of profiles. During these spring months, the project seeks the maximum participation of citizens in order to be able to transform the anonymous stories and experiences into actions, measures or policy recommendations to improve the mental and emotional wellbeing of citizens next autumn.
Josep Perelló explains that the possibilities for analysing the data are very varied and some can be very sophisticated: “we could identify very common but little known social experiences in order to focus on aspects such as the social isolation of some people with mental health problems or to fight stigma in a more targeted way”. According to him, “we can also observe which apparently very different experiences are shared by the same people and give clues about what a 360-degree model of mental health care could be like, which not only covers medical aspects, but also allows us to offer care that includes strategies for informal leisure, work or educational environments, among many other dimensions of our social relations”.
How to participate?
The chatbot is open to everyone from the age of 18, since, directly or indirectly, everyone has had experiences related to mental health. Therefore, maximising the diversity of perspectives is a valuable contribution to the project. To participate, you need to have the Telegram app installed on your mobile device. Once inside, to access the chatbot, click on the search engine magnifying glass and type “CoActuem per la Salut Mental”. When you locate it and enter, the chatbot will welcome you in the four languages with which it is configured (Catalan, Spanish, English and German) and then ask you to choose your language.
From here, you will only have to follow the conversation. In this conversation, the chatbot will send you stories experienced by the co-researchers of the project, some of them illustrated by Pau Badia, and will ask you to reflect on your personal experience about experiences related to mental health.
Keep in mind that the chatbot is not a tool for psychological help, but an instrument for investigating citizen science. With your participation, you will be contributing to generate anonymous data, but very useful to advance scientific research and the search for improvements in social support networks for mental health.
About the project
CoActuem per la Salut Mental is a project promoted by the OpenSystems group of the University of Barcelona and the Mental Health Federation of Catalonia, but has a wider team of co-researchers with their own experience in mental health. In addition, the project also has a community of people and organisations involved in the management and knowledge in the field of community mental health. The project is part of CoAct, a global initiative funded through the European Union’s Horitzó 2020 research and innovation programme, under contract no. 873048.
