Researchers from the ibs.GRANADA develop a mobile app for early detection and prevention of mental disorders

On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, the E-05 Research Group of Bio-Environmental Psychiatry of ibs.GRANADA has announced the development of its In-PREMENT project led by the professors of the Department of Psychiatry of the Faculty of Medicine from Granada Blanca Gutiérrez and Jorge Cervilla.

This Innovation project has recently received a national grant with a grant from the Health Research Fund of the Carlos III Health Institute and is the final phase of a project with several previous phases developed by these researchers over the last 10 years.

The study consists of developing a mobile application (app) that serves to predict the risk of mental disorder from an evaluation of genetic and socio-environmental risk factors. The identification of mental disorder from a large random sample of 5300 Andalusian participants, in a previous phase of the study, will allow associating these disorders to indicators of genetic predisposition in combination with socio-environmental precipitants of risk of disorder. Among these factors, the following stand out: lack of social support, difficulties with / at work, educational and cognitive level, consumption of toxic substances or certain personality traits.

Thus, with this mobile application it is possible to estimate the risk of suffering from a mental disorder taking into account these bio-environmental factors and to identify early possible cases on which a rapid and preventive therapeutic action would be applied. This tool may be available to primary care centers, social services and users, which would allow early intervention if necessary.

It is an innovative, patentable project that is easy to use from mobile devices by both users and professionals, and focused on detecting signs of new disorders or their relapse.