Grant accepted 🥳
I am happy to announce that I was awarded with an SNSF Ambizione grant to study smartphone-based social support interventions for people with depressive symptoms.
The Swiss National Science Foundation approved my Ambizione grant entitled Social support in times of need: Design and evaluation of a social support Ecological Momentary Intervention.
I will be joining the Department of Psychology at the University of Zurich to working together with Prof. Dr. Urte Scholz and her team.
What is the project about?
The waiting time for outpatient psychotherpeutic treatment in most western countires is higher than 6 weeks. The project adresses an increasing need for remote psychological tools to support individuals during these times of despair. For this, reserachers have been making use of the smartphone as an intervention tool in daily life setting. So far, however, interventions have not made use of the most obvious use of the smartphone: to connect to others. Having access to a social support network, is key to preventing and treating depressive symptoms. This project aims to design and implement a social support EMI delivered through the smartphone. In the proposed social support EMI, support-seeking within one’s social support network is suggested at crucial time points in people’s daily lives. The goal of the proposed research is thus to (a) to investigate contextual features (the when, the who, the how) in daily life under which social support is helpful and (b) evaluate whether social support EMIs help individuals to activate their social support networks and to reduce mental health issues, such as depressive symptoms.
If shown to be effective, this remote personalized intervention tool, could help people feel less lonely, more connected to others, thereby helping them to cope with depressive symptoms.