Depression is one of the most prevalent problems and the leading cause of disability worldwide. In Chile, the rates for this pathology are among the highest internationally. According to data from the 2016-2017 National Health Survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, 15.81% of the general population over the age of 18 reports having experienced depressive symptoms in the past year; that is, feelings of sadness and loss of interest or enjoyment.
For their part, 6.2% of Chilean men and women were diagnosed with this pathology, showing a significant difference in the national prevalence between women and men, with the former having a prevalence of 10.1% and men of 2.1%.
MIDAP, nacido en 2015 como un Instituto Milenio, es un centro científico conformado por psicólogos, psiquiatras y profesionales de diversas áreas de las ciencias sociales y de la salud, quienes buscan generar conocimiento basado en una comprensión multidimensional de la depresión en interacción con la personalidad, con el objetivo de maximizar la efectividad de las intervenciones mediante la identificación de los agentes y mecanismos de cambio involucrados en la prevención, la psicoterapia y la rehabilitación.
More than 150 researchers and young people in training make up MIDAP's scientific team, who come from its six host institutions: the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the University of Chile, the University of Development, the University of La Frontera, the University of Valparaíso, and the Diego Portales University, in addition to other national and international universities.
MIDAP seeks to generate scientific knowledge on mental health, with a special emphasis on depression and personality functioning, that will contribute to improving prevention, promotion, and treatment interventions, as well as public policies. To this end, MIDAP seeks to conduct excellent scientific research, develop advanced human capital, and create scientific collaboration networks that maximize the dissemination and impact of the knowledge gained on society as a whole.
MIDAP aims to establish itself as a national and Latin American benchmark in research for the prevention, promotion, and treatment of mental health, thus contributing to the improvement of mental health and well-being.
MIDAP's Annual Reports describe the work carried out in the center's four lines of research: Basic Bio-Psycho-Social Structures and Processes; Health Promotion and Psychosocial Prevention; Psychotherapeutic Interventions and Change Processes; Mitigation of Chronic Depression (formerly Rehabilitation and Reintegration); as well as the publications produced each year; participation in conferences and other relevant events; the training of young researchers; and the establishment of networks and links with the public and private sectors, among other activities.
These reports also provide information on MIDAP's administrative and financial organization.
MIDAP is the product of a long-standing collaboration, its first predecessor being the multidisciplinary team "Research Group on Psychotherapy and Change" constituido en el año 2002 y liderado por la Doctora en Psicología, Mariane Krause. Este grupo, conformado por psicólogos y psiquiatras con vasta experiencia en clínica e investigación, desarrollan y patentan los Indicadores Genéricos de Cambio, los que permiten evaluar el proceso de cambio psicoterapéutico, y el Sistema de Codificación de la Actividad Terapéutica (SCAT), método que permite conceptualizar el dialogo pacientes y terapeutas.
Más tarde, con la ampliación de disciplinas involucradas, este grupo decidió postular al concurso para transformarse en un centro de investigación de excelencia de la Iniciativa Científica Milenio (ICM), entidad dependiente en ese tiempo del Ministerio de Economía, Fomento y Turismo del Gobierno de Chile. Es así como se conforma en el año 2012 el Millennium Nucleus "Psychological Intervention and Change in Depression"", which combined psychological, psychosocial, and psychophysiological approaches to reveal the processes involved in the origin and maintenance of depression, as well as to establish the effectiveness of interventions. Through specific interdisciplinary studies, some of the main results were:
(1) The existence of the endocrine response to stress and its interaction with the subjective experience of anxiety.
(2) The cognitive functioning of people with different personality types (differentiating between anaclitic and introjective) and the relationship between these profiles and the level of depressive symptoms.
(3) The brain activity of the therapist and the patient throughout the therapies.
(4) La efectividad de intervenciones en madres con depresión durante el embarazo y post parto cuando se toma en cuenta el tipo de personalidad de la progenitora; entre otros hallazgos.
Finally, in 2013, this group of researchers decided to apply for a new ICM competition, winning one of the two Millennium Institutes in Social Sciences awarded at the end of 2014. Thus, the Millennium Institute for Research in Depression and Personality (MIDAP), one of the first Latin American scientific centers dedicated specifically to the study of depression, which seeks to achieve a multidimensional understanding of the disease, studying its genetic, social, and cultural variables, and a more complex perspective on personality. Its goal is to maximize the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions for the various disorders studied at MIDAP, generating knowledge that can inform public mental health policies, whether in prevention, therapy, or rehabilitation.
MIDAP ha sido financiado por Milenio y otros fondos concursables nacionales y extranjeros. Fue dirigido por la Dra. Krause entre 2015 y 2019, luego por el Dr. Juan Pablo Jiménez, desde 2019 a 2024, y actualmente es dirigido por el Dr. Alex Behn. Entre 2015 y 2019, sus cinco instituciones albergantes fueron: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Chile, Universidad del Desarrollo, Universidad de La Frontera y Universidad de Valparaíso. El año 2019 MIDAP fue evaluado según las reglas de Milenio, pudiendo así avanzar a su segundo quinquenio, momento en el cual se agregó la Universidad Diego Portales como nueva Institución Albergante.