Research in Personality, Emotion and health

This line of research focuses on studying the effect that psychological interventions may have over biological, psychological and social aspects in people with different medical conditions (e.g. HIV, obesity, chronic pain, etc.) We highlight the economic impact that these results may have in the Spanish Public Health System and their influence in the development and management of public health policies. We are especially interested in the improvement of Perinatal and Reproductive Mental Health, a specific field that directly implies women´s health and that, for its social relevance, it should obtain major attention than it normally has received in our country. We conduct studies focused in the prevention of emotional disturbances in women with fertility problems and in those who are pregnant or at the post-partum process. We also study the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the psychological interventions (in individual and group formats), delivered in a health center or via Internet, directed to women with emotional disorders during the perinatal period.

The goals of this line are, on one hand, to increase the psychopathological knowledge regarding the transdiagnostic mechanisms implicated in the etiology and maintenance of emotional and personality disorders, and on the other hand, to study the cost-effectiveness and the implementation of transdiagnostic interventions for their prevention and treatment. We include studies related to the Unified Protocol and the Dialectical Behavior Therapy. The main context of research is the Spanish Public Health System, although we also conduct research in other contexts such us academic and community services. We are interested in studying the use of cost-effective psychotherapy formats, such as group therapy and Information and Communication Technologies, to increase the number of people that may be able to receive the evidence-based treatment that they need. Research results from Spanish validations of questionnaires and improvements from case, multiple base designs and longitudinal studies, as well as randomized controlled trial, are presented.

The goal of this line of research is to study the relationship between memory processes and/or spatial orientation and sociodemographic, biological and psychological (emotional and personality) variables. With this aim, studies with different populations, community and clinical (e.g., elderly with cognitive impairment or dementia), and in different contexts, naturalistic or laboratory, are conducted. In some of the studies, the use of Information and Communication Technologies, such as Augmented Reality, is included. Implications resulted from these studies include the improvement of assessment methods and their adaptation to different types of users.