Europe is in a time of dramatic change - war, economic crisis, climate change, migration, digitalisation, pandemics, ageing and demographic shifts, collectively place increasing stress and pressure on our societies to adapt to fast-changing situations.
MENTBEST is designed to support vulnerable groups in the general population especially at risk of being disadvantaged by dramatic societal change, of experiencing stressors, and of suffering (further) negative impacts on their wellbeing, including mental health.
MENTBEST will use proven community-based interventions and innovative technologies to prevent and mitigate the mental health challenges associated with dramatic and rapid change in Europe, focusing on five vulnerable groups: migrants/refugees, older people, younger people, long-term unemployed, and those with mental disorders.
MENTBEST will first characterise the scale of change-related mental health challenges in Europe and then working with patients, healthcare and other stakeholders, identify interventions and tools that best build resilience and maintain mental health.
To address these important mental-health challenges, MENTBEST will adapt and extend the widely deployed and proven community-based 4-level intervention programme of the European Alliance against Depression (EAAD), expanding its field of application beyond clinical depression and suicide prevention to create an intervention programme for sub-diagnostic mental health problems such as depressive symptoms and mental distress, and for resilience. The product of this work will be a comprehensive community-based intervention (COMBINA) that MENTBEST will deliver and validate in five model regions, across five countries, with particular analysis of the benefits for vulnerable groups.
We will specifically include evidence-based interventions focused on the above-named vulnerable groups and integrate an app in the ultimate comprehensive intervention programme which will increase their mental health competency by using long-term data they generate via their smartphone for self-management. We will validate and refine the new intervention programme in five different countries and test the smartphone app in three countries, representing different levels of socioeconomic development and types of healthcare system. This innovative addition will be the RCT of app-based self-monitoring and self-management technologies for mental health, which use AI and n=1 longitudinal statistics to create individualised predictive models and provide users preventive and self-management support.
After validation and process evaluation, enhanced COMBINA will be a ready-to-use package which can be adopted throughout Europe and beyond. MENTBEST will inform a comprehensive communication,dissemination and policy-input programme to maximise impact, building on our relevant experience at all levels, from public outreach t ogovernment and EU policy.
