WP04 - Recruitment and characterisation

The goal of WP04 is to provide a comprehensive psychological and clinical characterisation of a sample of 2000 adolescents (see IMAGEN-study). We will provide detail on how adolescents will be recruited from high schools in 7 cities (Mannheim, Hamburg, Berlin, London, Nottingham, Dublin and Paris). We will also described inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study, provide information on how consent will be obtained, and detail on the measures used to assess this sample. The sample will be characterised along 7 broad dimensions: demographic, personality/temperament, cognitive-behavioural psychiatric history, familial psychiatric history, family environment and sociological determinants. Similarly, a full psychiatric interview will be administered, but additional measures will be included to provide more detailed information on quantity and frequency of substance use and misuse, antisocial/reckless behaviour and attention problems. We will also involve parents of probands in this assessment protocol to provide collateral information on certain measures and family history information.

The objectives of WP4 are as follows

• Developing an assessment battery to provide a comprehensive cognitive, behavioural, psychiatric and environmental characterisation of each adolescent participant.
• Assuring that all assessment procedures are piloted and validated for use in English, French and German-speaking adolescent populations.
• Developing a manual-based standard operating procedure for recruitment of participants and assessment of participants at two time points (at age 14 and ages 15-17) (in collaboration with SME Delosis).
• Developing of educational programmes to implement operating procedures for recruitment and clinical assessment of subjects Europewide.
• Recruiting and behavioural/clinical characterising of 2000 adolescent subjects, behavioural results quality check and transfer to local data center (in collaboration with SME Delosis and WP7 for data assembling and transfer).
• Complete follow-up assessments in year 4 on all 2000 adolescent subjects

WP leader is Dr. Patricia Conrod who has extensive experience in assessment instruments that cover addictive, impulsive and/or reward seeking behaviour. Patricia Conrod is a clinical psychologist and Clinical Lecturer at the National Addiction Centre, IoP. Her research focuses on cognitive, personality and biological risk factors for alcohol and drug misuse and the factors that mediate the co-occurrence of addictive behaviours with other mental disorders. Her experimental research focuses on factors that make people more susceptible to seek out behavioral reinforcement from drugs of abuse.