CONTACT
Contact the ALENTAR-J-CM team
LET’S TALK
Write to our team for more information, questions, or collaboration proposals.
Phone
(34) 91 394 63 57
FAQ
About the project
Mental health problems among adolescents and young adults are one of the most current concerns in Spanish society. Suicide is also among the top three causes of external mortality in this population. Our mission is to prevent and reduce these problems by developing advanced software based on Natural Language Processing (NLP).
Current social demands and challenges require researchers and mental health professionals to adopt preventive approaches. Prevention helps reduce the onset of emotional problems and suicide risk, but also supports early intervention when problems are already present and reduces recurrence. Ultimately, prevention improves quality of life and reduces healthcare costs.
Clinical professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, will be able to use our prototype as a decision-support tool for diagnosing emotional problems and suicide risk. In the long term, healthcare services will strengthen their capacity and effectiveness in treating patients.
This project brings together several research centers and social organizations committed to youth mental health.
The scientific and technological teams include the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM). These universities lead the research work and the development of advanced computational models.
Clinical research is conducted by hospitals within ALENTAR-J-CM: Hospital Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, and Fundación Jiménez Díaz’s associated hospitals.
Social partners, such as Teléfono de la Esperanza and FAD Juventud, collaborate by providing support, guidance and data resources.
Participation, data and privacy
All data come from field studies conducted in educational centers and hospitals.
We collect quantitative and qualitative data from self-reported questionnaires, audio recordings from voice-based experimental tasks, medical records and clinical session transcripts.
ALENTAR-J-CM project fully complies with the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice standards, Biomedical Research Act 14/2007, Organic Law 3/2018, and the EU GDPR (Regulation 2016/679).
All data are anonymized to prevent identification. Only authorized project researchers can access the data, under strict supervision by the Principal Investigator.
This four-year project will be developed until 31 December 2028. We are currently transitioning from Phase 1 (model training with existing data) to Phase 2 (field studies).
Participants must be 12 to 25 years of age, live in the Community of Madrid, have functional proficiency in Spanish and provide informed consent (with parental consent for minors).
Your participation will consist of two activities. First, you will fulfill an online questionnaire on sociodemographic and mental health aspects. Second, you will participate in an experimental task involving a narration of different emotional memories and a brief interview. This second activity will be audio recorded solely for research purposes.
The total estimated duration of both activities will be one hour, approximately. This duration may vary depending on participants.
Yes, you may withdraw or request data deletion at any time by emailing contacto@proyectoalentar.org with a copy of your ID or other similar documentation.
Research findings will be published in scientific journals or research reports using aggregated data only. No individual results will ever be published.
Access to the results
ALENTAR-J-CM research team is developing an advanced software capable of analysing spoken language to estimate risk of emotional problems and suicide in adolescents and young adults. This prototype will assess speech and voice markers, such as prosody, tone, or linguistic content, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models trained with field study data will be trained for the prototype’s development. In a final stage, this prototype will be proven in real-world clinical settings.
The software prototype will be used exclusively for research purposes and will not be commercially distributed.
Please contact us at contacto@proyectoalentar.org to express your interest. We appreciate collaborations from Secondary Education schools located in the Community of Madrid to participate in field studies. In addition, social entities and healthcare settings are kindly welcomed to collaborate in supporting and advising regarding the prototype adaptation in real-world settings.
This website is supported by the Dirección General de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica de la Comunidad de Madrid (Orden 3177/2024) through the I+D Technological activities program (TEC-2024/COM-224) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)