Region Hovedstaden uses Youwell to build and research digital treatment programmes

Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark, uses the Youwell platform to build, research, and deliver digital treatment programmes in mental health. Two examples are PreParent, a nationwide study on preventing postnatal depression at the NEAD Centre, and CONNECT, a newer project in cognitive training for mood disorders at the same research environment.

The challenge

Postnatal depression affects many new parents, but existing preventive measures rarely target both parents, and digital prevention before symptoms appear is uncommon. At the same time, many patients with mood disorders lack access to structured cognitive training as part of their treatment. Mental Health Services, Capital Region of Denmark, needed a flexible platform that could be adapted to several different clinical interventions - from screening and prevention during pregnancy, to cognitive rehabilitation therapy - built on their own clinical content in the form of text, video, and exercises.

How Youwell addressed the challenge

In the PreParent project, a nationwide Danish study with 7,000 pregnant women and co-parents, Youwell has delivered the platform behind IMPACT (Internet-based Modified Prenatal Affective Cognitive Training) - a programme developed by researchers at the University of Copenhagen in collaboration with Bergen and Lund, combining psychoeducation and emotional cognitive training. In a randomised controlled trial, 260 participants receive the preventive programme, while 260 make up the control group. The programme consists of nine modules over five weeks, with cognitive exercises such as N-back and Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM), regular therapist contact, and secure chat. Building on the strong results from PreParent, a new research team at the same centre approached Youwell about CONNECT - an online cognitive rehabilitation therapy for patients with mood disorders. The programme is being built on existing text, video, exercises, and images, with a logbook, therapist chat, and file upload as key features of the platform.

Results customers experience

• 7,000 pregnant women and co-parents take part in PreParent - one of the largest studies of its kind in Denmark
• Randomised controlled trial with 260 participants in the intervention group and 260 in the control group
• The programme combines psychoeducation with advanced cognitive exercises such as N-back and CBM
• The same platform is now being reused for CONNECT, a new project on cognitive rehabilitation therapy at the same research centre
• Shows how the Youwell platform can be built on for further clinical interventions within the same research environment