Psychosocial implications of avatar use in supporting therapy for depression.

Help4Mood is a novel intervention to support the treatment of depressive disorder using an embodied communicative agent (Avatar) to engage the user with therapy tasks. We conducted 10 focus groups with patients and mental health professionals, in the UK, Spain and Romania, in order to explore issues around usability and contextual fit. Emergent themes related to the design and use of Avatars indicated the value of configurability for optimising personalisation and perceived trustworthiness; the importance of supplementing rather than replacing face-to-face interaction, and perceptions of the agent as therapeutic ally or supportive friend. The use of Avatars in psychotherapy is relatively new and its acceptability, value and risks are unknown. These results indicate that users wish to engage with Avatars that meet their personal preferences and fit appropriate role expectations. The perception of Avatar as colleague or friend raises conceptual and ethical issues which merit further research.

HL7 in personal health system component's integration for mental health treatment / HL7 como componente de integração em Sistema de PEP para tratamento em Saúde Mental

Help4Mood is a project inside 7th European Framework Programme (FP7) for developing a computational distributed system to support remotely the treatment of patients with major depression at home. Core components are integrated with Health Level Seven (HL7) standard. One of the main goals of this system is to use the paradigm of a Virtual Agent to support the first symptoms of clinician alert of a patient, to interact with him an to prevent some causes of relapse. The system processes inputs from different devices (to monitor sleeping, eating and motor activity) in a decision support system, and the Virtual Agent interacts with the patient before clinical support from hospital is needed. The technical framework is using the open source HL7-standard-based healthcare integration engine, Mirth Connect, to interact with the different subsystems, analyze data and give different priorities for messages in queues. Particularly, the use of standard HL7 will contribute to interest in the project results and the potential impact through the development, dissemination and use, as stated in the analysis of the European commission.

Help4Mood é um projeto do 7 º Programa de Framework Europeu (FP7) para desenvolvimento de um sistema computacional distribuído para apoio remoto de tratamento domiciliar de pacientes com depressão. Os principais componentes são integrados com o padrão Health Level Seven (HL7). Um dos objetivos principais deste sistema é a utilização do paradigma de um agente virtual para apoiar os primeiros sintomas de alerta clínico de um paciente, interagirindo com ele de forma a impedir que algumas ocorrências de recaída. O sistema processa as entradas de dispositivos diferentes (para monitorar a dormir, comer e atividade motora) em um sistema de apoio à decisão, e o Agente Virtual interage com o paciente antes que o atendimento clínico hospitalar seja necessário. O framework usa o código-fonte ?open source? como motor de integração baseado no padrão HL7, chamado ?Mirth Connect? a fim de interagir com os diferentes subsistemas, analisar os dados, e dar prioridades diferentes para as mensagens enviadas. A utilização do padrão HL7, por certo, contribuirá para os resultados do projeto e o impacto potencial através do desenvolvimento, difusão e utilização, como referenciado na análise da Comissão Europeia do programa.