In 20th of October 2009 took place in IN3 building the seminar THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY: TWO EXPERIENCES.

The main goal of this brief seminar is to describe and discuss the use of new technologies in health psychology, trough the presentation of two different research works.

Opening remarks by Dr. Meritxell Roca.

Talk I: Information and social technologies in health.
The speaker was Dr. Patrick McGrath, is Vice President of Research at the IWK Health Centre and Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pediatrics and Canada Research Chair at Dalhousie University. His research focuses on the use of technology to deliver care and to prevent problems.
Brief despcription: Information technologies including the telephone, videoconferencing, internet, smartphones and the web as well as social technologies such as Twitter and Facebook are just beginning to be used as methods of delivering healthcare. There are considerable potential advantages and some disadvantages to delivering healthcare and health promotion using these methods. Careful research and attention to common sense are needed to insure that the best interests of patients and the public, rather than the vested interests technophiles are the focus. Several projects using technology will be discussed

Talk II: Providing resources for caregivers trough the Internet
The speaker was Dr. Eulàlia Hernández is Professor of Psychology at the Open University of Catalonia. She is also the head of PSINET research group at the IN3 Institute. Her research focus is the improvement of quality of life in several health problems trough the use of Information and Communication Technologies
Resum de la conferència: Internet is a common tool in our daily living that offers new possibilities for communicating and delivering health care treatments. One of these possibilities is to use Internet to create a community where professionals (such as psychologists) and caregivers can work together in order to generate processes to improve the quality of life, by providing caregivers with resources to cope with difficult situations. From this perspective, in this session, two projects aimed to improve quality of life of caregivers will be discussed.

Closing remarks Dr. Rubén Nieto & Dr. Anna Huguet