The overall aim of this project is to promote the mental health and well-beingof students at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, based on the Stepped Care model, developed in the program for the promotion of mental health in higher education - ACCES Program. Focusing on a promotion and prevention approach, and adopting a logic of collective participation, the following specific objectives are identified: 1. Development of mental health promotion, prevention and adjustment activities (level 1 and 2), with a view to improving skills related to mental health literacy, mental resilience and stress management; 2. Strengthening psychotherapeutic and psychiatric responses for students with common mental disorders of mild to moderate severity (level 3), with a view to early intervention and avoiding more serious pathologies; 3. Strengthening the mechanisms for identifying situations of risk or serious mental illness and referring them to specialized health services (level 4 and 5); 4. Promoting the active participation of the student association in the development, implementation and evaluation of activities;5. Inclusion of students with specific educational needs and other vulnerable groups (1st year students, displaced students, national and international students, students benefiting from school social action, scholarship students from PALOP countries, women students, and LGBTQIA+ students), across the board in the activities developed.

Nepalese Education in E-health - Master (NEEM) targets the shortage of specialists in health information systems in Nepal through establishing two master programmes at Kathmandu University and Pokhara University. Each programme will admit 10 students the first year and expand to 20 over a two years period. The programmes will include a lab where research students will collaborate with the Ministry of Health and other Nepalese organisations on health information systems in Nepal and which be developed into a model for the Provincial Health Information Hubs envisaged by the MoH. The labs will also be used for in-service training of health personnel. The European partners University of Oslo (UiO) and The University Institute of Lisbon have long experience in working with partners in LMICs and Europe on eHealth. The University of Oslo is also involved in projects for course development with partners in India and Africa, and course material developed in these projects will be used as a basis and adapted for Kathmandu and Pokhara universities. Eight lecturers from the Nepalese partners will be funded by the project for PhD education; one at UiO and seven at Indian universities which UiO collaborates with in academic projects in the health information systems area. Eight master students will do exchange visits between Nepal and Europe, and scholarships will be awarded to four female master students in Nepal. Expected impacts are that the master programmes will continue running after project funding ceases, that Kathmandu and Pokhara universities attract collaborative projects in Nepal and internationally, and that master programme graduates gain skills which are useful in their work.

The proposed research project aims to conceptualize and study opioid-related stigmatization from an interdisciplinary perspective and within the different levels of the social environment of patients living with chronic pain.

Global diagnostic study whose purpose will be to listen to the main stakeholders of the CCI- key actors in each of the countries and, in this way, provide an accurate picture of the actions of the associated organizations at global level, identify good practices that can serve as a standard model for all associates and identify priority intervention areas that can guide the design of new projects and facility of their funding.

Several studies have shown evidences of psychological suffering among the younger generations and in particular in university students. The context of the pandemia COVID-19 has generated many more challenges, with increased impacts on this group. The resilient@uni project brings together a group of psychologists from different specialty fields (e.g., social, educational and clinical psychology) to explore the mental and physical health of this population, identifying potential risk and protective factors, at different levels, from intra-individual variables to social contexts. These results are aimed to inform appropriate intervention programs and policies to tackle this issue. This project was conducted in collaboration with students: Catarina Caseiro Guilherme Manica Joana Maciel Ricardo Marques Joana de Moraes

This project investigates the influence of patient social status on pain assessment/management practices (PAMP) which rests on the ability of health-care practitioners to empathize with the experience of the pain patient. Two theoretical models are proposed and tested: social status effect and its psychosocial accounts (Model 1), and social status buffer effect models (Model 2). Model 1 hypothesizes a patient social status effect on PAMP and, based on the Dehumanization and Social Representation Theories, suggests two potentially related mediators: dehumanization and body representation. Drawing upon the Contextual Model of Gender biases in PAMP, Model 2 predicts that patient social status may also moderate the influence of contextual cues on PAMP.      7 tasks are organized in 3 work packages (WP). WP1 includes 4 tasks to investigate Model 1. WP2 includes two tasks and seeks empirical support for Model 2 with an experimental paradigm. WP3 aims at the integration of all the empirical results with the reviewed literature and the diffusion of results to the scientific and health professional communities.

INTEGRA I&E consisted on an action-research project that, between 2014 and 2016, aimed at investigating the gap between discourses and practices of research-teaching integration at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at ISCTE-IUL. It also aimed at the colective and participated development of strategies to increase the research-teaching nexus. 

More and more human beings experience in their lives persistent pain for months or years, not necessarily associated with any kind of injury or disease. International epidemiological data shows that an average of 35,5% persons experience chronic pain (CP). Moreover, 11% of adults experience severe and incapacitating CP. War against pain has a relatively recent international and national history. In Portugal, only in the last decade efforts have been made to overcome the under developments in such area of research. Nevertheless, a lot of work is left undone. In fact, pain has been one of the most neglected topics of research in the history of medicine. It was only after the Gate Theory (Melzack & Wall, 1965) that pain, traditionally seen as a linear and direct response to noxious stimuli, became conceived as a biopsychosocial phenomenon. Sex and gender studies on pain experiences are a field of research that clearly look for integrating psychological and social factors in accounting for pain experiences. Such was the general main contribution of this project. Starting from evidence that pointed to sex-related differences in pain, this project bridged a gap between two distinct lines of research which seldom crossed: 1) control-related beliefs and coping literature, which is predominantly individualistic and psychological  and 2) gender studies, which add a sociological and psychosocial perspective. The project started with a general approach on how health practitioners and the lay public viewed CP and gender issues. Specifically, we aimed at analyzing gender role expectations people may have on pain control and pain coping.  Next, we investigated the role that gender role expectations played in shaping health technicians’ perceptions of patients and their suffering, and ultimately, their pain assessment and management strategies. Both quantitative (experimental studies)  and qualitative (grounded-theory) methodologies were used in this project.   ...