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01/10/2020 - General information

EU-funded Mental Health Promotion and Intervention in Occupational Settings

The Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) is in charge of managing this project.

Current situation

Each year, around 20 million European citizens are affected from depression. Depression is a serious illness which impacts on all aspects of life, including work. While Small and Medium Sized enterprises particularly face substantial economic losses due to the global impact of COVID-19, the MENTUPP consortium anticipates, that capacities for mental health promotion and provision in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will be even more limited in the future. A second COVID-19 wave might further impact negatively on people affected by depression. This is why action on occupational mental health is urgently needed.

Resources for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

"Limited capacities for mental health promotion and provision of adequate occupational mental health programmes for employees are a concern shared by most decision-makers in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)", says Prof. Ella Arensman, Coordinator of the MENTUPP project. In the EU, these businesses contribute to more than 90% of the economy. Particularly, SMEs in the construction, healthcare and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sectors have been associated with higher risk of mental health difficulties compared to other sectors. COVID-19 has significant short-term and long-term effects on the mental health people working in these sectors.  In addition, the pandemic leads to increased stress, worry about employment and job uncertainty. At the same time, the care situation for patients with mental health conditions is currently impaired due to a shift of resources, and those in need of treatment are less likely to seek help (e.g. due to the personal perception that COVID-19 is currently more important, fear of infection), which further increases the risk of treatment deficits. Information and resources for the treatment of depression, which can contribute to a proactive approach by  individuals and related parties such as employers can be found at ifightdepression.com and Mates in Construction.

New MENTUPP project website

The MENTUPP EU-project was previously known as MINDUP*. Due to a change of the project name, information on the Consortium and project information such as infographics related to the topic of occupational mental health, is now available via https://www.mentuppproject.eu/.

Research team. Source: IMIM

About the project and our institution

MENTUPP ('Mental Health Promotion and Intervention in Occupational Settings') is an EU-funded international research project with the primary aim to improve mental health in the workplace by developing, implementing and evaluating a multilevel intervention targeting mental health difficulties in SMEs in the construction, health and ICT sectors. The secondary aim is to reduce depression and suicidal behaviour at the workplace. MENTUPP consists of 17 global partners with expertise in mental health, suicide prevention, depression, mental illness stigma, implementation science, as well as health economics.

Our institution is the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), which is in charge of managing this project. More than 700 professionals develop research activities in the framework of IMIM, of which 190 are principal investigators, distributed in 56 research groups integrated into the five multi-disciplinary research programs: Cancer, Epidemiology and Public Health, Cardiovascular and Inflammatory Processes, Biomedical Informatics, and Neurosciences. One member of the Neurosciencies department is Dr. Benedikt Amann, who is the Principal investigator of this project and expert in the treatment of traumatic events in patients with mental disorders. Dr. Benedikt Amann and his co-workers (Dr. Ana Moreno-Alcázar, Bridget Hogg, Prof. Victor Pérez) will lead one workpackage of the MENTUPP project, creating interventions that raise awareness and improve early identification of sector-specific and gender-specific mental health issues, in particular Depressive Disorders and Comorbid Anxiety, and provide pathways to support employers and employees in SMEs in construction, health and other sectors.

*Note: MINDUP turns into MENTUPP - The MENTUPP EU project was previously known to you as MINDUP. The MINDUP EU project is not associated with, nor endorsed by Goldie Hawn and the Hawn Foundation and its MindUp programme which can be reached at the following website: https://mindup.org/

Learn more about MENTUPP: https://www.mentuppproject.eu/

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