Swann Pichon - Behavioral Sciences, Gamification in Health, Psychology

I am an HES associate professor at the Geneva School of Health Sciences (HES-SO) and an associate research fellow at the Swiss center for affective sciences at the University of Geneva.

My team and I are interested in the potential of gamification for health interventions. We address these questions at different levels ranging from applied to more fundamental science, using convergent methods from behavioral sciences, computer science and game design, as well as cognitive and affective neuroscience.

One fundamental question aims at understanding the links between executive functions, emotion regulation and dimensions such as anxiety. Attention and executive control are key functions to deploy regulation strategies, and their impairment in conditions like anxiety may impede effective regulation. This knowledge has theoretical implications for understanding the links between these constructs. It has also practical implications to guide the design of interventions seeking to improve attentional control and investigate whether this may in turn produce benefits in affect and regulation. This project is in collaboration with Daphne Bavelier (UNIGE), Naima Gradi (UNIGE) and Tomer Shechner (U. Haifa)

A more applied aspect of our research targets the use of gamification or mobile health for health interventions. Together with the company Imito, Sebastian Probst (HEDS nursing dpt) and Guillaume Chanel (UNIGE, computer science dpt), we aim at leveraging deep learning to facilitate the monitoring of chronic wounds, and use serious game to provide wound care professional education. In another project developed by the company HaploCare (Dr Sonali Quantius), together with Emma Leavy (nursing dpt) and Laurent Gaucher (midwifery dpt), we are interested in the potential of a mobile health app to host an online community to provide peer-support to new mothers during the perinatal period.

News:

- September 2022: HES-SO funding domaine santé - co-applicant with Laurent Gaucher. This project will aim at evaluating the acceptance and adoption of a mobile app hosting a community of mothers. This feasibility study will also evaluate the adoption and feasibility of a randomized control trial aiming to evaluate the effect of online peer support on well-being in women at risk of developing postpartum depression. 

- July 2022:  Finalist for the 7th Challenge debiopharm-Inartis patient quality of life with Sonali Quantius (Haplocare), Laurent Gaucher and Emma Leavy (HEDS) and the project Haplocare, an application enabling access to peer support during perinatality.

- January 2022: Innosuisse funding - collaboration with the company Imito, co-applicant with Sebastian Probst (HEDS) and Guillaume Chanel (UNIGE). This project aims at working on the development of an deep neural model for allowing the monitoring of chronic wounds, as well as a serious game for chronic wound care education.

- October 2021: you can view the recording of the online symposium organized the 14th Sept. 2021: “The Covid-19 Pandemic – A Digital Health Catalyst”, which aimed at highlighting some of the positive effects that the current pandemic is having on the digitization of healthcare.

- February 2020: Joined the Geneva School of Health Science as an Associate Professor (Haute Ecole de Santé de Genève).

Contact:

swann.pichon [A] hesge.ch