Inserm has developed an application to fight against depression. Free to download on smartphones, StopBlues has been tried out in various French cities and is now coming to Bondy, in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Depression affects one in five people in France with a prevalence twice as high among women. To fight against this increasingly present disease in society, Inserm has developed an application called StopBlues, free to download on smartphone in some French cities. After having been tested in 36 municipalities, it arrives today in the city of Bondy, in Seine-Saint-Denis, announced The Parisian Sunday August 11.
“The objective is to help people who have a drop in morale, real psychological suffering. These people are often not aware of all the signs that identify this suffering. The objective is to recognize it. in privacy, in anonymity”, explains Karine Chevreul, director of the project, in an explanatory video.
Thus, this app allows people to identify the signs of depression such as loss of pleasure, fatigue, sleep and eating disorders, and to try to understand the causes of this lasting malaise. To overcome this, StopBlues offers games, relaxation and positive psychology exercises as well as concrete testimonials from people who explain how to take the plunge to talk about it. And in case the user considers harming themselves, the device even contains an emergency button to call for help. Remember that Public Health France counted 8,948 deaths by suicide in metropolitan France in 2015.
“Know what helpers are around you”
“People have to understand that it can happen to anyone, that it’s only part of life and that there are solutions. These solutions, we bring them to another part of StopBlues by trying to inform about the benefits of talking about it to relatives or professionals (…) Another part helps you to evaluate yourself: you have access to the quiz part, it’s a simple, extremely quick questionnaire, which allows you to know where you are (…) Once you know all this, you can geolocate yourself and find out what help is around you, whether associative or professional”, continues Karine Chevreul.
In Bondy, the municipality has mapped the places that can receive and direct suffering people who wish to do so. “These places include both certain services of the city, like the teams from Marianne’s house, and health care structures and professionals, such as general practitioners or pharmacies”, explains Jean-Jacques Rémond, coordinator of the local mental health council, at the Parisian.
“We have integrated three experimental groups of cities to ensure the promotion of StopBlues at different stages of its development. We have a relay role, in particular with our partners in the psychiatry sector”, he specifies.
A program developed with Inserm researchers
This program, funded by the Public Health France agency to the tune of €950,000, was developed by an Inserm research team “in collaboration with health professionals and people like you who have agreed to share their experience. “, is it explained on its official website.
In September 2018, Inserm and the Haute Autorité de Santé published a characteristic list of nine symptoms specific to depression. Continuous sadness, perpetual fatigue, loss of interest in activities that we were passionate about, recurrent dark thoughts, troubled relationship with food, psychomotor retardation, physical disorders (loss of libido, stomach ache), difficulty concentrating and permanent guilt are unmistakable signs.
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