Pre-Congress pour étudiants et médecins assistants 
Jeudi, 29 août 2024

Concept

The aim of the Residents' Day is to combine clinical practice with research activities in child and adolescent psychiatry. We do not only want to arouse the interest of residents in research, but also provide an insight into new developments for clinical practice.

Research is essential to support the continuous development of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools and ultimately to improve patient care in our specialty. Unfortunately, research is often seen as a boring activity or reserved for an intellectual elite.

On this day, we will try to show that research is above all a human adventure full of encounters and dreams, accessible to all residents and an ideal complement to any clinical activity, whether with the aim of a doctoral thesis or simply for the pleasure of participating in ongoing projects.

To this end, we expect about a hundred Swiss residents to meet with international and local experts in a relaxed atmosphere around a common theme and a concrete and motivating project.

Topic: New technologies in child & adolescent psychiatry: what impact on young patients, what questions for residents?

To address this topic, we have chosen 4 clinician-researchers, each of whom is conducting translational research, i.e. research that draws on both questions relevant to the clinic and patients, and the contributions of neuroscience research. Maude Schneider, will present on how “digital phenotyping” could be used to personalise intervention in our young patients while Corrado Sandini will insist on how this “digital phenotyping” could be used to improve our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders. Maurizia Franscini will present how an app for smartphone can help patients to better manage their daily life difficulties. Philipp Sterzer will introduce the field of computational psychiatry and predictive modelling.

Group Work

For 2 decades now, new technologies have gradually invaded the daily lives of our young patients, modifying their behavior, bringing new problems, but also new solutions. As a resident, what are you confronted with? Do you feel your training is sufficient? What do you think are the needs, both for you and for your patients?
These are the questions we'll be trying to answer over the course of the afternoon, in small groups, each led by one of our 4 experts. The results will be presented at the congress and may lead to a publication.


Programme (in english only)
09:30 - 10:00 Welcome coffee/tea & croissant
10:00 - 10:10 Welcome & Introduction
Bigna Keller, president of the SGKJPP,
Jochen Kindler and Paul Klauser
10:10 - 10:55 Expert Input 1: Digital phenotyping: a tool for the personalization of interventions in psychiatry?
Maude Schneider, Genève
10:55 -11:40 Expert Input 2: Potential and challenges of digital phenotyping approaches to understand neurodevelopemental disorders.
Corrado Sandini, Genève
11:40 - 12:00 Coffee/tea break (drinks only)
12:00 - 12:45 Expert Input 3: Therapy program Robin: app-assisted treatment for adolescents at increased risk of psychosis. 
Maurizia Franscini, Zurich
12:45 - 13:30 Expert Input 4: Computational psychiatry - explaining psychosis within the framework of predictive processing.
Philipp Sterzer, Basel
13:30 - 14:30 Lunch break and networking
14:30 - 14:45 Introduction to group work
Bruno Rhiner, Chairman of the Commission for Postgraduate and Continuing Education,
Jochen Kindler and Paul Klauser
14:45 - 16:00 Group work
16:00 - 17:00 Wrap up: Synthesys/Presentation

Closing by Kerstin von Plessen, president of the congress
ab 17:00 Apéro and networking
19:30 Congressdinner at Musée Olympique
(with registration only)

Pre-Congress Experts

  • Maude Schneider
    Maude Schneider UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE
    Maude Schneider

    University of Geneva, Assistant Professor


    Digital phenotyping: a tool for the personalization of interventions in psychiatry?

    Maude Schneider is assistant professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Geneva since 2019 where she heads the Clinical Psychology Unit for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Maude Schneider is working as a clinician and researcher in the field of neurodevelopmental disorders. Using a combination of clinical and cognitive approaches as well as digital phenotyping, her research aims to explore the mechanisms underlying social and mental health difficulties of adolescents and young adults with neurodevelopmental conditions.

    In the first part of the presentation, Maude Schneider will present how Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) techniques can be used for symptom monitoring and for the exploration of relevant psychological mechanisms underlying the clinical expression of symptoms. In the second part of the presentation, she will highlight how information collected in the flow of daily-life could be used to personalize interventions in the fieldof mental health.

  • Corrado Sandini
    Corrado Sandini UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE
    Corrado Sandini

    University of Geneva / Fondation Pôle Autisme, Ambizione Research Fellow / Medecin Chef de Clinique


    Potential and challenges of digital phenotyping approaches to understand neurodevelopemental disorders.

    Corrado Sandini studied medicine at the University of Genova in Italy. He then pursued a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Geneva focusing on the developmental of computational approaches, namely dynamic network analysis, to characterize neurodevelopmental and clinical pathways of vulnerability to psychosis in 22q11DS. Since his PhD he divides his time as a resident in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Fondation Pole Autisme in Geneva and research activity. He has been supported by a clinical scientist grant of the NNCR Synapsy to study the role of sleep disturbances in 22q11DS and more recently by an the SNSF Ambizione Fellowship to study the contribution of sleep disturbances in contributing to affective comorbidities in ADHD using an ecological digital phenotyping approach and network analysis techniques.

    Corrado will highlight the role that computational analysis techniques might play in the clinical translation of these technologies, by helping clinicians navigate the complexity of digital phenotyping data in a more intuitive and informative way. He will briefly discuss how increasing precision of clinical assessments could help us shed light on differential underlying neurobiological mechanisms.

  • Maurizia Franscini
    Maurizia Franscini UNIVERSITÄT ZURICH
    Maurizia Franscini

    Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie PUK Zürich, Chefärztin


    Therapy program Robin: app-assisted treatment for adolescents at increased risk of psychosis

    After graduating from the Liceo Cantonale in Locarno, Maurizia Franscini studied medicine first in Bern and then in Zurich, earning her MD in 1995. In 2006, she obtained her specialization in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy. Since 2000, she been working at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich, where she currently holds the position of head physician. She developed and implemented the therapy App Robin Z at the University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Zürich.

    The Robin therapy program was developed in the early recognition center of Zurich with the aims to improve quality of life and daily functioning of adolescents at high risk for psychosis. In this presentation, the Robin therapy program will be presented and the hurdles and special features of treatment of adolescents will be discussed.

  • Philipp Sterzer
    Philipp Sterzer UNIVERSITÄT BASEL
    Philipp Sterzer

    Univeritäre Psychiatrische Kliniken Basel, Professor of Translational Psychiatry


    Computational psychiatry - explaining psychosis within the framework of predictive processing

    Professor Sterzer studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich and at the Harvard Medical School and obtained his MD in 2001. He habilitated in Experimental Psychiatry at the Charité Berlin. He is board certified in Neurology and Psychiatry. From 2011 he was Professor of Psychiatry and Computational Neuroscience at the Charité and since 2022 he holds position of Professor of Translational Psychiatry, University of Basel, and Chief Physician, Zentrum für Diagnostik und Krisenintervention, Universitäre Psychiatrische Kliniken Basel. His research focuses on predictive coding and computational psychiatry.

    There has been an increasing interest in theory-driven computational approaches towards explaining psychiatric disorders in recent years. Philipp will present a Bayesian predictive processing account of psychosis and empirical evidence from recent behavioral, neuroimaging and pharmacological intervention studies supporting this account. Moreover, he will discuss potential implications of such a theory-driven approach for the development of biological and psychological treatments.