Games for Mental Health research analyses the community model on mental health care

Press conference.
Press conference.
Research
(06/03/2018)

The results of the Games for Mental Health research, a citizen science project that analyses interactions between people who have mental disorders, family members and caregivers in a participating way, and which aims to offer new knowledge on the community model on mental health-have been presented.

Press conference.
Press conference.
Research
06/03/2018

The results of the Games for Mental Health research, a citizen science project that analyses interactions between people who have mental disorders, family members and caregivers in a participating way, and which aims to offer new knowledge on the community model on mental health-have been presented.

El treball lʼhan dut a terme el Grup de Recerca OpenSystems de la Universitat de Barcelona i la Federació Salut Mental Catalunya, en col·laboració amb la Universitat Rovira Virgili, la Universitat Carlos III de Madrid i Abacus. Els resultats sʼhan publicat en un article científic a Scientific Reports.

This work has been conducted by the OpenSystems Research Group of the University of Barcelona and the Catalonia Mental Health Federation in collaboration with Universitat Rovira i Virgili, University Carlos III of Madrid and Abacus, and its results have been published in a scientific article in Scientific Reports.

The research was conducted with digital games and the participation of 270 individuals forming the mental health ecosystem: firsthand affected (62,6 %); caregivers, professionals and non-professionals (25,6 %) and others, like friends or family members (11,9 %). The research was completed with forty-five sessions in four Catalan cities (Lleida, Valls, Sabadell and Girona) between 2016 and 2017.

The main results of these games reveal that people with mental disorders make the biggest effort to contribute to the common wellbeing, but these are also the most vulnerable ones. Their decisions in the games show trust, reciprocity, cooperation and the feeling of belonging to the community. Also, the carers and professionalsʼ cooperation and optimism are key elements in the community.

Participants with mental health problems tested their vulnerability, which accounts for a 5% less of the final gains. Inequalities can come up among the different stakeholders regarding attitude, abilities and strategic actions, and they have to be properly managed. Therefore, people with mental disorders were the ones who contributed the most to the collective wellbeing. Josep Perelló, UB researcher and director of this study, notes that “this group is the one that made the biggest effort to reach the collective objective, and thus shows an outstanding role in the good functioning of the ecosystem. Their predisposition to contribute to a collective action is regarded as a way to call for their place in the community”.

Moreover, almost eight out of ten professional and non-professional caregivers acted cooperatively, and in 65 % of the cases they expected their colleagues to cooperate too. Perelló adds that “the high level of cooperation and optimism of the caregivers is essential: it consolidates their crucial role in the community model on mental health”.

“The results constitute a starting point and a successful case to touch on specific proposals aimed to promote social integration of people with mental disorders, increasing the community services and launching active policies on the promotion of mental health and preventing exclusion”, says Xavier Trabado, spokesperson of Catalonia Mental Health Federation and one of the family members that took part in the research.

Connection of relations to improve mental health

In Catalonia Mental Health Federation and the involving associations, these kinds of researches reinforce the idea that mental health recovery depends on the interaction of many factors, and the cohesion of relations between different stakeholders of the ecosystem formed by people with mental disorders, family members and professional and non-professional carers.

Also, the research suggests that “support and promotion of empowerment for these people has a great impact, because people with mental disorders showed they are the ones who cooperate the most to contribute to the collective wellbeing. This feature strengthens the idea that the community models can make a difference in the recovery and wellbeing process”, says Trabado.

Therefore, the Catalonia Mental Health Federation is working to get more support and resources for the community model, as well as support to the network of entities that work to improve mental health.

Citizen science and game theory to study the community

The experimental setup, implemented with tablets, simulates strategic social interactions based on game theory and present social dilemmas (that can put a strain on the individualʼs interest and the common good).

The experiments were conducted during 2016 in a socialized environment and daily life conditions, such as the World Mental Health Day or a social club. “In this context, we wanted to measure -in an innovative and multidisciplinary way- the social cohesion of the groups formed by different stakeholders that take part in the recovery of mental health”, says Perelló.
 

Article reference:

Anna Cigarini, Julián Vicens, Jordi Duch, Ángel Sánchez i Josep Perelló. «Quantitative account of social interactions in a mental health care ecosystem: cooperation, trust and collective action». Scientific Reports, 8: 3794 (2018). Doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21900-1

 

Games for Mental Health from OpenSystems on Vimeo.