Research group Person-centered mental health in primary care

Aims

We conduct scientific research to improve the quality, accessibility, and sustainability of mental health care in primary care. Our goal is to enhance the mental well-being of individuals within primary care settings. We do this based on the core values of generalpractice (person-centered, continuous, relational, contextual, generalistic) and in collaboration with others within the care chain.

We focus on common mental health complaints, with specific attention to the interplay between physical, psychological, and social factors.Our mission is to strengthen self-management, resilience, and participation, prevent over- and under-treatment, and contribute to providing appropriate mental health care in the right place, ensuring that specialist care remains available for individuals with severe mental health problems. We achieve this by linking research to practice, education, innovation, and collaboration.

Achievements

• Improving care for patients with mental health problems in primary care

  We improve the care for patient with mental health problems in primary care by:

  1. initiating research projects on depressive symptoms and anxiety
  2. establishing a multidisciplinary mental health care and research network (i.e. "living lab Mental Health Care")
  3. developing and validating scalable e-health interventions for mental health in primary care

• Improving care for patients with persistent somatic symptoms

  We improve the care for patients with persistent somatic symptoms by:

  1. demonstrating the importance of doctor-patient relationship and the importance of the doctor-patient communication as main drivers of better quality of care for these patients
  2. contributing to national and international evidence-based guidelines, and
  3. actively participating in national and international research consortia

• Contributing to care for patients with COVID and post-COVID

  We contribute to the care for patients with COVID and post-COVID by:

  1. initiating longitudinal research projects and multiple national consortium grant applications
  2. developing a successful post-COVID healthcare service in the region Nijmegen
  3. contributing to the Dutch health council committee on post-COVID
  4. contributing to the national research agenda on post-COVID
  5. involvement in the Post-Covid Network Netherlands (PCNN) as work package leader on real world data. 

Publications

See the publication list of the research group leader on Web of Science.

Alumni

• Dana Rouland
• Asma Chaabouni
• Brodie McGhie-Fraser
• Nick Mamo
• Frans Derksen
• Inge Stortenbeker
• Ilona Plug
• Margreet Wortman
• Aranka Ballering