Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Programme 2014 - 2020 INTERREG VB Northern Periphery and Arctic

Date of latest update: 2023-11-16

Description

Description (EN):

Current mental health service provision for NPA citizens cannot meet the rising demand to prevent and manage mental ill health. There is a lack of digital mental health support for tracking symptoms and for providing treatments and coping strategies at the point of need for 24/ 7. Traditional one-to-one mental health services supporting people with chronic mental illness as well as mild-to-moderate mental illness is expensive and resource limited. One-to-one intervention support requires significant travel for clients living in rural areas; hence accessibility to traditional treatments are a particular concern. Moreover, given mental ill health remains a stigma, citizens often feel embarrassed when setting up appointments with a support person due to the lack of anonymisation. ChatPal will undertake pilot trials in up to 5 NPA regions, increasing citizen access to psychotherapeutic support using a computer-based intervention service which will be in the form of a conversational user interface, or chatbot, based partly on the needs analysis workshops carried out in the NPA VoicePal preparatory project. This chatbot service will be available 24/7 and allows users to receive support through a natural voice or text based conversation that is driven by artificial intelligence. ChatPal will be a new, blended mental health service offering. ChatPal augments and extends the reach of traditional existing services but does not replace these services. The technology will be usable and intuitive as it is similar to everyday human-to-human conversations allowing the technology to be adopted by those with poor computer literacy. ChatPal will enable people to easily access support at the point of need in the form of a conversation. Evidence within our preparatory project suggests that citizens will engage or open up sooner to an online virtual presence (chatbot) in comparison to a human project worker due to anonymity and the lack of stigmatisation.

Website: http://www.interreg-npa.eu/

Expected Results (EN): Awareness and attitudes among health professionals towards the use of eHealth technologies

Expected Outputs (EN):

The project positively contributes to the programme result, addressing the “Awareness and Attitudes among health professionals towards the use of eHealth technologies”. This has been made an explicit project objective. ChatPal challenges healthcare professionals to use chatbots to augment healthcare provision in rural areas - especially given that chatbots are distant spanning that will future proof the growing demand of mental health provision, and given that chatbots are more user friendly when compared to health apps. ChatPal will involve co-creation and open discussions between psychologists from different NPA regions to discuss the fears and opportunities of using AI and chatbots for care provision. This is important given most industries have fears of being replaced by AI whilst other industries embrace AI as a tool to augment their everyday job. Allowing these discussions and by educating professionals about chatbots will result in a greater understanding of these technologies and that they will unlikely replace professionals but will instead make their jobs/services more robust and provide greater patient care. We will improve the attitudes of professionals by involving them in the co-creation of our eHealth tool (the chatbot). Our effort in achieving this is evident by our planned activities, i.e. to assemble transnational psychotherapy content and coping strategies which the chatbot will use as its expert knowledge base. Allowing experts to control the knowledge base of the AI chatbots will empower the professional since they can see that the chatbot can only use their explicit knowledge and not their tacit knowledge. Attitudes should improve by showing how the chatbot assists the professional instead of replacing them. We will showcase the effectiveness and economics of deploying a chatbot to provide better care and for augmenting current services. We have planned activities to develop web-based toolkits and training to increase the competence and confidence of professionals and to assist them in prescribing eHealth chatbots to clients. Attitudes will be measured using a survey amongst professionals at the start and end of the project. In addition to this main programme result, ChatPal will have other results: 1) Elicitation of digital mental health needs in NPA areas. 2) Consensus amongst mental health professionals regarding the use of chatbot services to blend with and deliver beyond traditional services. 3) Creation of a transnational knowledge base of coping strategies and psychotherapeutic content for use in eHealth chatbot services. 4) Multilingual, blended chatbot service for younger and older citizens. 5) Data analysis of the effectiveness, economics, and user adoption of a blended chatbot service. 6) ChatPal source code and psychotherapeutic content released on GitHub with open source licensing. 7) Sustainable, transferable framework for developing healthcare-based, blended chatbot services for the NPA region.

Thematic information

Health and social services

Specific Objective: Increased innovation within public service provision in remote, sparsely populated areas

Thematic Objective: (01) strengthening research, technological development and innovation by:

Investment Priority:

(01b) promoting business investment in R&I, developing links and synergies between enterprises, research and development centres and the higher education sector, in particular promoting investment in product and service development, technology transfer, social innovation, eco-innovation, public service applications, demand stimulation, networking, clusters and open innovation through smart specialisation, and supporting technological and applied research, pilot lines, early product validation actions, advanced manufacturing capabilities and first production, in particular in key enabling technologies and diffusion of general purpose technologies

Partners (9)

Lead Partner: Ulster University

Department: School of Computing, School of Psychology, Department of Global Business and Enterprize

Address: Cromore Road,, BT52 1SA Coleraine, United Kingdom

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.ulster.ac.uk

Total budget: EUR 299 884.35

ERDF budget: EUR 194 924.83

NHS Western Isles

Name: NHS Western Isles

Department: Public Health Intelligence

Address: SouthStornoway, United Kingdom

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.wihb.scot.nhs.uk

Total budget: EUR 219 785.46

ERDF budget: EUR 142 860.55

Itä-Suomen yliopisto

Name: Itä-Suomen yliopisto

Department: Department of Nursing Science

Address: P. O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.uef.fi

Total budget: EUR 220 000.00

ERDF budget: EUR 143 000.00

Munster Technological University

Name: Munster Technological University

Department: Nimbus Research Centre

Address: Bishopstown, T12Y275 Cork, Ireland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.mtu.ie

Total budget: EUR 146 116.82

ERDF budget: EUR 94 975.93

Cork Institute of Technology

Name: Cork Institute of Technology

Department: Nimbus Research Centre

Address: Bishopstown, T12 Y275 Cork, Ireland

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.nimbus.cit.ie

Total budget: EUR 99 298.54

ERDF budget: EUR 64 544.05

Luleå Tekniska Universitetet

Name: Luleå Tekniska Universitetet

Department: Department of Business Administration, Technology Social Sciences & Department of Health Sciences

Address: SE-97 187 Luleå, Sweden

Legal status: public

Website: http://ltu.se

Total budget: EUR 290 000.00

ERDF budget: EUR 188 500.00

Region Norrbotten

Name: Region Norrbotten

Address: Robertsviksgatan 7, 971 89 971 89, Sweden

Legal status: public

Total budget: EUR 49 994.11

ERDF budget: EUR 32 496.17

Action Mental Health

Name: Action Mental Health

Department: Business Development

Address: Jubilee Road 27, BT23 4YH Newtownards, United Kingdom

Legal status: public

Website: http://www.amh.org.uk

Total budget: EUR 101 089.19

ERDF budget: EUR 65 707.97

Norrbottens Kommuner

Name: Norrbottens Kommuner

Address: Box 947, 971 28 Luleå, Sweden

Legal status: public

Website: https://www.norrbottenskommuner.se

Total budget: EUR 69 382.11

ERDF budget: EUR 45 098.37

Partners map

Partners and Projects info

NHS Western Isles

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

University of Eastern Finland

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Munster Technological University

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Cork Institute of Technology

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Lulea University of Technology

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Norrbotten Region

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Action Mental Health

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Norrbotten Association of Local Authorities

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Partners and Projects info

Ulster University

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Project acronym: ChatPal

Project start date: 2019-10-01

Project end date: 2022-09-30

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 1 495 550.58

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 972 107.88

Total EU funding (co-financing rate): 65.00%

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, EUR 972 107.88.

Documents

Documents on this project are listed below, and organised by category. Please note field "Data source", attached to each document. Keep.eu users are free to use these documents as long as they mention the data source and keep.eu.

Studies / surveys

A Multilingual Digital Mental Health and Well-Being Chatbot (ChatPal): Pre-Post Multicenter Intervention Study

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2023-07-06

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Can Chatbots Help Support a Person’s Mental Health? Perceptions and Views from Mental Healthcare Professionals and Experts

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2021-07-31

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Chatbots to Support Mental Wellbeing of People Living in Rural Areas: Can User Groups Contribute to Co‐design?

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2021-09-20

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Toolkit for the co-creation of health-based chatbots

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2022-09-01

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Usability testing and trust analysis of a mental health and wellbeing chatbot

Attachment type: file

Type of document: Study / survey

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2022-10-07

Languages: en

Attachment file: Download

Videos / films

ChatPal Project

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2020-04-07

Languages: en

IN CONVERSATION WITH GAVIN MCCONVEY AT THE ANNUAL CHATPAL CONFERENCE IN STORNOWAY

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2022-10-12

Languages: en

The ChatPal Journey

Attachment type: link

Type of document: Video / film

Data source: https://chatpal.interreg-npa.eu/

Publication date: 2023-11-06

Document date: 2022-09-20

Languages: en

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2014 - 2020 INTERREG VB Northern Periphery and Arctic

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2023-11-02

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

152 / 152 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

779 / 779 (100%)

Notes on the data

Information provided by the Programme

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Contact Form

Conversational Interfaces Supporting Mental Health and Wellbeing of People in Sparsely Populated Areas

Description

Thematic information

Partners (9)

Partners map

Summary

Documents

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Disclaimer