About the project
Within a few years, almost the entire population (regardless of gender, age, education and residence) are connected to the "net" in the form of daily use of computers, cell phone, read boards, interactive TV, etc. These channels have the property that they can reach very many people at a low cost and that they are available to the user independent of time and place. They also enables a high degree of individualization of therapy elements (adaptation to the individual user) and interactivity (user activation). This makes these media suitable for delivery of digititalzed techniques and therapeutic elements that have been proven effective in a clinical context. This makes them very suitable in relation to deploying eHealth and ePsykologi interventions. These are interventions that can both help to prevent disease (smoking cessation, alcohol reduction, dietary modification, physical activity, depression, etc.) but also to help people with a chronic illness to improve health and quality of life (ADHD, diabetes, cancer, MS , HIV infection, etc.).
Objectives
The goals of this project are threefold. Firstly, we want to study to what extent and in what areas such interventions can be effective. We are also interested in the psychological treatment elements that are particularly suited to these kind of interventions. Thirdly, we are interested in these interventions in an information system perspective; what makes them good information systems (structure and organization, interface design, interactivity, individualization, etc.). The research is conducted in the form of randomized studies, surveys and qualitative user studies.
The scientific objective of the project is to contribute to knowledge development in an area that combines knowledge of psychology and medicine, with knowledge of technology and informatics (eHealth and ePsychology). Within a social perspective, we want to ensure that knowledge can be exploited to design interventions that can benefit both public health and individuals in the form of better health and quality of life.