English version 

Background
The project came about against the backdrop of a desire to continue focusing on improving quality of diagnosis and treatment of patients with a mental disorder. In this connection, our goal is to. Our goal is to increase research expertise within the mental health services in the various health trusts. This is most likely the most efficient way to improve professional expertise needed to implement evidence based treatment and at the same time take into consideration its limitation and thus provide optimal mental health care. 

Objective
The projects shall result in a doctorate theses  for each of the research fellows. In addition to the individual doctorates, the project will also supply  the departments and colleagues associated with the research fellows with fundamental research skills and help nurture a treatment culture founded on constructive albeit critical evidence-based treatment. The doctorates are therefore not merely a goal in and of themselves, but also a means to achieve qualitatively better equitable treatment at all the health trusts.

Organisation
Seven health trusts have employed one research fellow each, but the goal is to gradually draw all the health trustin South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority into the network.

South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority will set aside a certain amount of money each year for the project in addition to the research coordinator's salary.

The research fellows are part of a research network run by a steering committee consisting of one representative from each of the seven health trusts involved.  

Background for choosing depression as the main topic of the research project: 
The World Health Organization has calculated that in the age group 18-44, depression leads to a greater loss of function on a global basis than war and accidents and other diseases, such as, for example, cancer, cardiac diseases and infections. From both an individual and a social perspective, optimal evidence-based diagnosis and treatment of patients with mood disorders is therefore essential.

Depression is the most common mental disorder in Norway and the main cause of loss of ability to function in the working population. Among the working age population, the number of workdays lost because of non-psychiatric causes (influenza, pain, injury, heart disease, etc.) is estimated to be two workdays a month per 100 workers. The number of workdays lost because of mental disorders, of which mood disorders are the most common, is 11 workdays a month per 100 workers. If a person has a somatic and a psychiatric disease the number of workdays lost per month rises to 49 per 100 workers.

Contact with other research networks in Norway 
To maximise the synergy effects, contact has been established with the Bipolar Research And Innovation Network (BRAIN). This is a research network consisting of various clinical departments in Norway (South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, Western Norway Regional Health Authority, and Central Norway Health Authority) that work with bipolar diseases. (Chairman: Associate Professor Gunnar Morken MD, PhD, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)).

NORMOOD is also associated with the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority and the University of Oslo?s focus area Thematic Organized Psychoses Research (the TOP Study; steering committee chairman: Prof. Ole A. Andreassen MD,PhD), which includes affective spectrum disorders.

Collaboration with these networks entails that all the NORMOOD projects, including the qualitative ones, use a number of the same assessment  methods as BRAIN and TOP (semi-structured diagnostic interview, clinical descriptions, severity assessment) and collect genetic material for the biobank for use in genetic analyses (molecular biological markers). Using common methods enables us to generate more knowledge together than each individual project would have done separately.

Status and the road ahead
The researchers meet every six weeks for two-three days. Each meeting focuses on different aspects of research related issues including researchable hypotheses, methodology, data analyses and presentation of results. The objective of these general meetings is to provide the participants with the skills needed for progress of their research. I.e., the content of the meetings are tailored to meet the needs of the research fellows at the various stages in the process. The meetings also aim at forging ties between the research fellows so that they can provide each other with mutual assistance and support.The research fellows will be associated with the doctoral programmes at either the Institute of Psychiatry or the Department of Psychology at the University of Oslo.
Parallel to the doctoral programme at the University of Oslo, the project will continue to organise general meetings for the research fellows on research topics relevant to their needs. Throughout the entire process, the project will arrange local meetings with the research fellows colleagues and the clinic management to ensure the knowledge acquired by the research fellow is shared and, where appropriate, to involve other professional groups in the project.

Contact:
Mrs Tove H. Otterstad, RN
Research manager NORMOOD
South-Eastern Norway regional Health Authority.
Tel: +47 97 07 39 20