Increasing mental health awareness and stress management among 1st year medical students using web-based intervention: Digitalized Transitions and mindfulness exercises is research project lead from the Research center for child psychiatry at the University of Turku, Finland. Transitions program is conducted as a course for first year students. The first aim of the study is to investigate the effects of Transitions program and mindfulness exercises on mental health awareness, attitudes towards mental health problems and help seeking of first year medical students, and to promote their wellbeing. The second aim is to increase students’ understanding of factors affecting mental health and mental health problems.
The research program has been developed in cooperation with university students and professionals and researchers working with young people.
University of Turku administrates and maintains the Transitions registry. The personal data are processed at the University of Turku.
Data processing will be conducted under the public interest; scientific research. Finnish University law (558/2007) 2 §, EU General Data Protection regulation (art. 6, paragraph 1, subparagraph e) Finnish Data Protection Act (4 §, subsection 3). Special categories of personal data will be processed under the EU GDPR (art. 9 paragraph 2, subparagraph j) and Finnish Data Protection Act (6 § subsection 1, paragraph 7).
Questions regarding the study:
Lithuania - Professor Sigita Lesinskienė
e-mail address: Sigita.lesinskiene@mf.vu.lt and phone number +37068617550
Kenya - Dr. Frida Kameti
e-mail address: frida.kameti@amhf.or.ke and phone number +254797526576
Indonesia – Dr. Fransiska Kaligis
Email: fransiska.kaligis@ui.ac.id or kaligisfransiska@gmail.com and phone number: +62811891615
Project leader: Andre Sourander, MD PhD, Professor of child psychiatry
Research center for child psychiatry
University of Turku
Lemminkäisenkatu 3 / Teutori 3. krs
20014 Turun yliopisto, Finland
Data will be collected in a digital server. Student fills in electronic questionnaires four times: before the program, immediately after the program and 2 months and 6 months after the beginning of the program. The questionnaires include the following measurements:
In the pre-evaluation, participants are asked about their background as follows: name, email address, year of birth, gender, native language, country of origin, the university, faculty / studies, international studies, age of moving from parental home, parental support, financial resources, previous mental health education and medical professionals in the family. In addition, the effects of corona pandemic will be surveyed. E-mail addresses are collected because the program sends automatic e-mail reminders of the follow-up questionnaires to participants.
The data will be gathered automatically on usage of the digital program (number, time and duration of sign-ins). The cross-cultural Transitions –program will be conducted in a digital environment in 2020 and 2021. The same program will be provided to students in Finland, Lithuania, Kenya, Indonesia, Argentina and China. The internet connection between the Transitions platform and the user’s computer will be SLL-protected. The program is located at a server hosted by the University of Turku, Finland and it is subject to information security guidelines of the University information management. The registered students use the program with a personal username and password. The user is responsible for minding the log-in details. The loci data that are automatically gathered by the web site are used for specific purposes of this research and for nothing else.
Participation in the research is voluntary and students may participate in the course without participating in the research.
Collected data will be stored in the server no longer than until 2030. The identifiable data will be destroyed and the data will be aggregated in a group-level data and filed as such at the latest in 2030.
Lithuanian data will be shared between the University of Turku and Vilnius University.
Kenyan data will be shared between the University of Turku and African Mental Health Research and Training Foundation.
In the premises provided by Standard contractual clauses of the EU commission.
All research material is confidential and will be collected for the specific purposes stated in the research plan of this study and to be used only by the research group.
Following rights of the participating students will be exercised: Right of obtaining information on the processing of personal data, right of access, rectification, restriction of processing, right to object processing, right to erasure or to be forgotten and right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.
May be contacted in matters concerning rights of the participant, dpo@utu.fi.
IT Services provides the common ICT infrastructure and services for university’s faculties and other departments. These include the network infrastructure, centralized services, virtual server platforms, User IDs, workstations, smartphones, storage facilities, data security services, software licenses, help desk services and lifecycle management.
Network infrastructure is configured and maintained on-site by university staff both physically and logically. The network is divided into separate zones according to specific needs (physical, wireless, services, workstations, protected usage, etc.). Storage facilities, servers and other services are produced on-premises unless stated otherwise. IT services’ data center is located in three separate facilities in and near the campus.
Campus buildings are secured by centralized key management and, if needed, by security zones. University purchases security guarding services and alarm systems as needed. IT services are produced and administered in premises secured according to government physical security standard level 3, which states no unauthorized persons are allowed in without escort and the premises are kept locked at all times.
All authorized users are subject to Rules of IT Service Use. New users are identified using government-issued identification documents or by citizens’ identification and payment service. Each new employee for services administration in the IT Services department will be briefed to security practices by the CISO.
Workstations are by default provided and maintained by IT Services. University provides a campus license to most widely used software and operating systems. Departments are free to administer their own specialized equipment provided they decide to invest their own resources to administer the equipment securely, continuously, and according to Administrative rules of IT services.
All IT services and their administration is subject to Administrative rules of IT services and the university information security policy. They define the acting principles of administration, which are: Good administration practice, Respecting the Right to Privacy, and Professional Secrecy.
Data security is upheld by 7 main measures:
If your project needs a more comprehensive description, please let us know.
Contact information for additional details:
Mats Kommonen
Chief Information Security Officer
University of Turku
tietoturvapaallikko@utu.fi