“In the wake of the pandemic, the number of young people with suicidal tendencies has increased markedly. For this reason, entities such as the Telèfon de l’Esperança from the Aid and Hope Foundation launched several tools to help prevent this behaviour in young people,” explains researcher Pere Castellví. “One of these tools, which already has more than 8,000 users, is the Suport Xat Joves (Young People’s Support Chat), a chat designed to emotionally support all young people who need it,” he added.

With the help of the Connect Call of the Social Observatory of the ”la Caixa” Foundation, UIC Barcelona and the Telèfon de l’Esperança have combined their resources to promote the project titled “Using machine learning to identify the determinants and risk of suicide in young people” to contribute to the mental health care and emotional well-being of young people.

Specifically, the UIC Barcelona team of researchers led by Pere Castellví will analyse the data obtained from the chat of the Telèfon de l’Esperança with the help of artificial intelligence and qualitative analysis. The objective is to detect the psycho-social determinants of emotional distress in young people, identify the factors that are associated with the appearance of suicidal ideation and behaviour, as well as detect what factors could deter users with suicidal plans from acting on them. In addition, as Castellví points out, “this work will also allow us to develop a useful guide for mental health professionals and other groups that deal with this population and improve the effectiveness of support for young people in this situation”.

The objective of the Connect Call of the Social Observatory of the ”la Caixa” Foundation is to support research projects on emotional wellbeing and mental health in Spain, carried out jointly between research and social sector organisations.