Oral Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Can New Technologies And Psychotherapy Models Address Old Problems In Youth Mental Health? (#424)

Mario Prof Alvarez-Jimenez 1
  1. Orygen, The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Parkville, VICTORIA, Australia

Early intervention is seen as the most evidence-based approach to improve the long-term outcomes of mental disorders. Over the past two decades, early intervention services have been developed, evaluated and disseminated across the world. However, despite these advancements, the associated burden of mental disorders has not substantially reduced. This is partly due to the shortcomings of current youth mental health services. For example, the majority of young people with mental-ill health and their families do not access evidence-based interventions. Even when they receive treatment, this is confined to intermittent face to face sessions, with over 40% only attending two sessions of psychological treatment. In addition, youth mental health services are not equipped to effectively prevent relapse and up to 80% of young people with depression or psychosis will experience relapses following treatment response. Moreover, existing interventions have limited effectiveness in improving social functioning. eOrygen, the digital branch of Orygen (The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne) is focused on addressing these issues through harnessing digital technology, new and evidence-based models of psychotherapy (e.g., positive psychology) and computational models (i.e., artificial intelligence). In this presentation, we will review the latest interventions designed by eOrygen.