Category: News

We are thrilled to announce that Christian Rück has been nominated for the August Prize in the non-fiction category for his book Ett liv värt att leva!

The August Prize is a Swedish literary award, presented annually by the Swedish Publishers’ Association since 1989.

Congratulations!

We invite you to join Psykiatri Sydväst’s Research and Development Day on November 5th, from 1:00 PM to 4:30 PM. This year’s theme is “Good Habits for Mental Health.”

The program will feature discussions on the importance of healthy lifestyle habits for mental well-being, poster presentations (including contributions from Rücklab members and others), and a panel discussion on the future and development of psychiatry.

The event will be held in Jan-Åke Gustafssonsalen at Campus Flemingsberg, Blickagången 16, Huddinge Hospital area. No pre-registration is needed—feel free to attend for the entire afternoon or drop by when it suits you.

Click here for more info and the full programme.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Take the time to hear Christian discuss suicidality from his perspective as a psychiatrist, professor, and author of his recent book Ett liv värt att leva (Albert Bonniers förlag, 2024) on the Swedish podcast Psykologsnack.

Here is a link to the episode – 108. Ett liv värt att leva? Med psykiatriprofessor Christian Rück.

We’re glad to welcome Julian Striegl to the research group as a new affiliated researcher. Julian is a research associate at ScaDS.AI (Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence) in Germany, where he works with conversational agents for ICBT, deep learning, and human-computer interaction, among other things. Julian will be joining our ongoing work on deep learning applied to genetics for suicide, predictive modelling after ICBT, and risk stratification after compulsive mental care in the statistical modelling team led by John Wallert.

Last week our modelling team led by John Wallert traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, for the World Congress of Epidemiology (WCE). We had three oral presentations and two poster presentations in psychiatric epidemiology!

Leoni Grossmann presented her work on: ”Suicide in the compulsory mental care population in Sweden: a descriptive nationwide registry study”.

Björn Bråstad presented his work on: ”Predictors of labour market marginalization in psychiatric patients following internet-delivered psychotherapy: a MULTI-PSYCH study with clinical, registry, and genetic data”.

And Fredrik Johansson presented his work on: ”Early change in individual depression symptoms and later symptom severity during internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy”. He also had two poster presentations.

The team was also accompanied by Head of Department of Statistics at Uppsala University, Ronnie Pingel, who is co-supervisor for Leoni. We also had time to socialise, enjoy the great sights, and delicious food! Both the WCE and Cape Town are strongly recommended!

At this year’s edition of the European Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies (EABCT) conference, we were represented by the eminent Maria Bragesjö and Max Sannemalm.

Maria contributed with a keynote with the title “Challenges and perspectives in prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD”, a panel discussion on the theme “New age of CBT – challenges and perspective”, and a three-hour workshop on prolonged exposure.

Max had a contribution in an open paper symposium on OCD, titled “Treating OCD in 4 days: the Bergen 4-Day Treatment versus gold standard CBT.”

We are so happy that Maria and Max are sharing their expertise on PTSD and OCD with our colleagues internationally!

This week PhD student Olly Kravchenko successfully completed her half-time review for her doctoral project titled Predicting health and socioeconomic outcomes in patients with common psychiatric disorders.

Olly’s research focuses on precision psychiatry, specifically on predicting outcomes in internet-mediated cognitive behavioral therapy for individuals with common psychiatric disorders. The project utilizes a large sample of 2,668 patients, with extensive clinical data, including genotyping for all participants, and links to multiple national registers.

Olly’s supervisors are Christian Rück (main supervisor), John Wallert (co-supervisor), and Ralf Kuja-Halkola (co-supervisor).

Stay tuned for more exciting updates from Olly Kracvchenko and her team!

From August 28-31, 2024, several members of the Saving Lives project attended the 20th European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behavior (ESSSB20) in Rome, Italy. This conference brought together leading experts and researchers from across Europe, all sharing a common goal: advancing and addressing critical aspects of suicide research.

The symposium offered a wide range of topics, eveeything from the ethical implications of euthanasia in relation to suicide, innovative public health interventions, to the integration of National Suicide Prevention Strategies across different countries.

Overall, it highlighted the importance of multidisciplinary approaches in addressing suicide risk and prevention , stressing the need for collaboration between clinical practice, public health initiatives, and policy development.

The event provisded inspiring and thought-provoking days, leaving us with valuable insights to bring back to our own projects.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. At Rücklab, we are conducting multiple research projects with the goal of better understanding, predicting, and preventing suicide. Some of our research projects include:

The Saving Lives project aims to create the world’s largest multimodal suicide cohort by combining genetic and environmental data. By identifying various risk factors and developing prediction models, the project seeks to improve the prediction and prevention of suicide. [Learn more here]

The Suicide and Compulsory Mental Care project seeks to understand the high suicide risk among psychiatric patients who have experienced compulsory mental care in Sweden. By analyzing a 40-year national dataset, researchers aim to identify risk factors, improve clinical decision-making, and ultimately reduce suicide rates in this vulnerable group. [Learn more here]

We are hiring a new research assistant to join the Rück research group!

Are you passionate about contributing to top-tier psychiatric research? The research group led by Christian Rück at Karolinska Institutet offers a unique opportunity to be part of an inspiring work environment.

The Rück research group is large and engages in a broad spectrum of psychiatric research, addressing topics such as suicide, compulsory mental care, OCD, PTSD, fatigue, and outcome prediction for CBT treatment. As a research assistant, your role will involve project coordination, research tasks, and communication with various partners.

We’re looking for someone with a strong interest in research, excellent administrative skills, and flexibility. Prior experience in research-related activities is a plus, and fluency in Swedish and English is required.

Read more and apply here.