We are excited to announce that one of our colleagues, Silvia Marin-Dragu, has successfully defended her master's thesis in the Psychiatry Research Program at Dalhousie University.

Her thesis, titled The impact of smartphone use and sleep duration on youth mental health, examined these associations through an innovative mobile sensing app developed by PROSIT Lab. The results of this research project highlight the importance of sleep on youth mental well-being and underscore the detrimental effect of excessive smartphone use.

Silvia would like to thank the participants who made her work possible, as well as mentor Dr. Sandra Meier, and committee members Dr. Penny Corkum and Dr. Alexa Bagnell.

This fall, Silvia will be starting the Ph.D. Clinical Psychology Program at Dalhousie, co-supervised by Dr. Sandra Meier and Dr. Jill Chorney. Her research will centre around using technology to enhance mental health interventions. We are beyond thrilled by Silvia's success and look forward to seeing what her bright future holds.

Meet Eva, one of our new research assistants! She has joined us to complete a project with the IWK Summer Studentship Research Program and our lab this summer. Eva is going into her fourth year of her undergrad at Dalhousie University with an honours in psychology. She is currently working alongside other lab members to support our Social Media study.

Eva's project for her Summer Studentship will analyze the motives of social media use in youth as well as how cyberbullying may play into that association. She would like to thank the IWK Research Services Office for their generous grant that will enable her to complete her studentship project with the PROSIT Lab.

About 11% of youth in Canada suffer annually from an anxiety disorder and even more so during the recent pandemic. Youth with anxiety disorders do worse at school, have poorer health outcomes, and are more likely to die by suicide. Genetic factors play an important role in the development of anxiety disorders. However, research on genetic factors among youth is more limited. To better understand the development of anxiety disorders among youth we need to include larger samples of youth in current genetic research. 

Our team is overjoyed to share the news of receiving a grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research for our study focusing on the  "Genetic Architecture of Youth Anxiety (GAYA)"! The GAYA study will include 6,500 youth patients and 6,500 youth from the general population. We aim to identify novel genetic risk variants for anxiety disorders in youth and assess how much of the genetic risk for anxiety is shared between youth and adults. We will also explore whether youth with a higher genetic risk respond worse to treatment and will need additional support. A better understanding of the genetic risk factors for anxiety disorders could potentially lead to early detection, better treatments and improved outcomes for Canadian youth.

Our team is pleased to announce our latest publication!
Current methods of assessing mental health disorders with internalized symptoms are inadequate; thus, new assessment tools such as mobile sensing technology may be the key to improved mental health services.
Click the image above to read more about the study and its findings!

Check out our newest publication!

Our team investigated the comfortability of users with data collection by mobile sensing apps.  Mobile sensing apps are an excellent tool for mental health services, as we may monitor changes in environment, behaviour and psychological states faster. Although, the security and comfortability of users are essential to implement mobile sensing apps in mental health services. 

Click on the image to learn more about our findings!