En Longitudinell Observationsstudie om Unga Individers Psykiska hälsa i Sverige

In Sweden, reports show an increase in mental health problems of young people, in particular of young women. This increase is poorly understood, calling for more rigorous studies to clarify extent and severity of the problems, but also, to inform practices on how to adequately assess youth mental health.

The purpose of this project is to increase our knowledge about the mental health of young women and men and to establish a valid and comprehensive method for assessing mental health in young individuals that can improve our capacity to promote mental health and address mental health problems. A multimodal data approach is applied, comprising a feasibility study on methods of assessment of mental health in young individuals.

The specific aims of the proposed project are: 1) To determine the extent and course of mental health in young women and men over a two-year period and discern the added value of multimodal data to assess and predict mental health problems. 2) To demonstrate the feasibility of different assessment methods of mental health in young women and men. Establishment of feasibility is done by collecting data on: recruitment rate, adherence and acceptance of study procedures including mode of data collection.

There is a common opinion in Sweden and internationally that mental health problems have increased over the past decades. More research is needed to understand this proposed increase in mental health problems and to clarify if the reports reflect a genuine deterioration in mental health. Existing studies have been criticized for not being able to provide reliable estimates of mental health problems due to heterogeneity in study designs and limitations including lack of use of established, comprehensive measures. The national surveys that indicate a deterioration of mental health in young women in Sweden rely on reports from single questions. Although less respondent burden, the validity and reliability of using single questions to assess concepts such as anxiety and depression can be disputed. Moreover, existing studies provide cross-sectional point estimates rather than prospective time lines, which generally result in more accurate and reliable data.

Traditional methodologies with sole reliance on self-reported data to provide accurate and reliable estimates to better understand mental health of young women may not be the way forward. For instance, metabolomics biomarkers taken from for example blood or urine have gained interest for its ability to screen new and unsuspected pathways involved in psychiatric disorders, and fear conditioning and extinction protocols as well as behavioural testing of e.g. avoidance and distress tolerance have shown promise in detecting and predicting mental health. Combining self-report data with information from such other data sources presents a promising approach, yet the use of multimodal data is an understudied area in mental health research. Moreover, with the ubiquity of smartphones along with advances in technology, it is now possible to use digital devices such as smartphones to assess and track certain behaviours, which makes it possible to address some of the drawbacks of traditional assessment methods. Behavioural real-time data on e.g., participant's symptoms, functions, and social environment in nonclinical settings collected from digital devices holds considerable potential for detecting, understanding and predicting psychiatric conditions, mood disorders, and depressive symptoms.