Service User and Staff Views on Digital Remote Monitoring for Psychosis
PsychosisSchizophrenia1 morePsychosis is a severe mental health problem. Symptoms of psychosis include hallucinations (e.g. hearing voices that others cannot hear) and delusions (unusual, often troubling beliefs). People who experience psychosis often have times when their symptoms are relatively stable. At other times, their symptoms may increase and become much more problematic (a 'relapse'). Helping people with psychosis to stay well (preventing relapses) is an important and time-consuming challenge for mental health services. Smartphones and other digital technologies are now widespread. This offers a solution to help tackle the overwhelming demand on services and to enable people with psychosis to access mental health support when they need it most (e.g. when relapsing). Research shows that people with psychosis are often willing to report their symptoms using a smartphone app. Apps like this can alert health professionals when someone needs extra support, but can be burdensome to use long-term. The investigators want to make a system that is less burdensome and is personalised to users' needs and experiences (a 'complex digital remote monitoring system'). Recent research shows that information gathered routinely by individuals' smartphones (e.g. GPS, step count) might help predict relapses of psychosis. The investigators want to use this method in a complex digital remote monitoring system. First, the investigators need to know what people with psychosis and mental health staff think about this idea. The investigators will interview around sixty adults with psychosis and around forty staff, recruited from UK mental health services (Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, London, Sussex). These one-off, audio-recorded interviews will last up to 60 minutes. The interviewer will ask about participants' views on complex digital remote monitoring. The investigators will then systematically analyse the interviews. Findings will inform the design of the investigators' own complex digital remote monitoring system and future digital tools designed by other researchers. NIHR and Wellcome are funding this study.
SV2 PET Imaging With [11C]APP311
Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic DisordersCannabis Use Disorder1 moreThe aim of this study is to evaluate a new SV2A tracer, [11C]APP311, in healthy aging and neuropsychiatric disorders including psychotic disorders and cannabis use disorders.
Peripheral Immune System in Individuals With Schizophrenia
SchizophreniaSchizo Affective Disorder1 moreThe investigators are seeking healthy volunteers and people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder for a clinical study of the immune system in psychotic disorders. This is an observational study, to understand the ways in which the immune system may be contributing to the disease process.
Genetic Study of Schizophrenia
Schizoaffective DisorderSchizophreniaThis large ongoing study at NIMH investigates the neurobiology of schizophrenia by identifying susceptibility genes, evaluating their impact on brain function to better understand how to treat and prevent this illness.
The Effect of Motivational Interview Intervention for Caregivers of Individuals With Severe Mental...
CaregiverMotivational Interview1 moreSerious mental illnesses are all chronic illnesses such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and other psychotic disorders, major depression, and bipolar disorder, which cause impaired functioning in areas such as activities of daily living, self-care, social relationships, professional and academic life, quality time, etc. These chronic illnesses are a significant source of stress for the patient and family members. With the transition to community-based practices in the care of chronic mental illnesses, t he duties of families have increased and as a result, have had significant negative effects on caregiver and family functioning. Caregivers face many challenges and these challenges cause caregivers to experience feelings such as anxiety, stress, fear, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, powerlessness, loss, and anger. It is understood that families are in significant need of psychosocial support interventions that will enable them to develop effective coping methods and reduce stress and anxiety. Themotivationall Interviewing Technique is one of the methods that can be applied to the caregivers of individuals diagnosed with chronic mental illness to adapt to the situation and cope with the difficulties they experience. Motivational Interviewing does not deal with issues such as teaching new information or ensuring acceptance of the past. It focuses on the individual's current stress, anxiety and dilemmas, goals, and plans. Studies show that any intervention that will contribute to the caregiver's coping attitude and psychological distress level will also support the empowerment of the sick individual. For this purpose, the study was planned to determine the effect of motivational interviewing intervention for caregivers of individuals with serious mental disorders on psychological distress and coping attitudes.
Technology-Assisted Implementation of a Mobile Health Program for Serious Mental Illness
SchizophreniaBipolar Disorder2 moreThe goal of this clinical trial is to learn about how a digital training platform can enhance implementation and effectiveness of a validated mHealth system, called FOCUS, in people with serious mental illness. The main question this research aims to answer is whether patients obtain similar outcomes to previous FOCUS studies when using FOCUS with clinicians trained on a newly developed digital training platform. Participants will be asked to use the FOCUS smartphone application and receive mobile health coaching from clinicians who have been trained using the digital training platform.
A Mobile Application to Improve Case-management and Patient's Functioning in First Episode Psychosis...
Psychosis; EpisodeFirst Episode Psychosis (FEP) includes perceptual distortions, delusions and cognitive impairment with severe consequences, such as suicidal behaviour. It affects 3% of the population, mainly adolescents and young adults, the majority of with progress to a psychotic disorder. The early stages of psychotic disorders, from the first full blown symptoms to the next two to five years, represent an opportunity to targeted care and prevention. Indeed, it is a critical period with a worsened clinical prognostic when intervention is delayed, increasing the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP). Also, it is a key period to reduce mortality, as it is characterized by elevated risks of suicide and low physical health outcomes. Besides the symptomatic components, this period is also critical for self-building on educational, professional and emotional levels. Early intervention programmes involve multi-disciplinary teams, including a care coordination function, embodied by a "case manager". His missions include assessing the patient's needs, developing a care plan to meet the latter, organising access to the different components of the care plan, monitoring and evaluating care, and providing clinical follow-up. Engagement in the care process is fragile in psychotic disorders, particularly in the context of first episode psychosis with a high risk of care disengagement, often associated with a relapse. It is therefore essential that case-managers involved in FEP services have access to tools designed according to the patient needs and not solely to symptoms, in a "recovery oriented" approach, to foster the feeling of commitment of patients in their care process. The use of mobile applications for smartphones represents an interesting perspective to improve the engagement of patients with FEP in care. However, the use of an application focused on recovery is feasible and acceptable in patients with first episode psychosis enrolled in a specialised outpatient department (FEP-type service) and allows improvement on clinical criteria, such as psychotic symptoms or mood. User-centred design methods including identification of users and an inventory of their needs, prototyping with rapid iterations, is a simplification of the procedure and exploitation of existing constraints to increase the rate of use. Moreover, it has recently been shown that such a methodology is feasible in populations with a first episode of psychosis. Our hypothesis is that the use of a mobile case-management application for planning and monitoring individualised care objectives, co-designed with patients, their careers, and health professionals, improves the functioning of patients managed for a first psychotic episode, compared to usual case management practices. The originality of our project is built up on two pillars : the use of a a mobile monitoring application, which will be used jointly by patients and case-managers, the methodological innovation also lies in the collaborative and patient-centred design of the application The originality of our project concerns on the one hand the intervention, an application mobile follow-up, which will be used jointly by patients and case managers. The innovative character also lies at the methodological level in the collaborative and patient-centered design of the application ('user-centered design' approach).
Online Exercise Intervention for Psychosis Patients Receiving Residential Care
PsychosisThe main objective of this randomised controlled trial (RCT) is to investigate the immediate and long-term effectiveness of 8-week online exercise intervention for people with psychosis receiving residential care.
Shared Decision Making for Antipsychotic Medications
SchizophreniaSchizoaffective Disorder3 moreThis study aims to provide an evidence-based shared decision making intervention for antipsychotic medications, the Antipsychotic Medication Decision Aid (APM-DA), for individuals experiencing early psychosis and provide, for the first time, an understanding of the shared decision making mechanism of action.
Metabolic Side-effects of Anti-psychotic Medications - a Nested Case Control Cohort Historical Prospective...
Psychotic DisordersThe study is designed to fill in the gaps in current knowledge by providing a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of the potential associations between antipsychotics (APs) and negative outcomes, as previous research has often been limited to data from clinical trials. The primary objectives of the study include assessing the association between APs and long-term major negative events such as osteoporosis, acute myocardial infarction, stroke, tardive dyskinesia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and breast cancer. Additionally, the study aims to assess the association between APs and long-term negative metabolic events such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. The study also aims to assess the association between APs and long-term negative metabolic measurements such as increased body mass index, cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, Hemoglobin A1C levels and glucose levels. This study aims to investigate the potential long-term negative effects of APs on patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders by using data from the Clalit Health Services database, which is the largest provider of health insurance in Israel, serving approximately 55% of the population. This database provides access to all diagnoses and blood tests for the duration of the study, which allows for accurate tracking of patient outcomes over time. Inclusion criteria for patients include being diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder in the Clalit database, having first exposure to AP medication between the ages of 18-60, having first prescription of AP medication between 2001 and 2021, and will follow them using the CHS database to assess metabolic side-effects and the appearance of major negative and major metabolic events, as well as abnormal metabolic measurements. The preliminary analysis of the study used a sample of 22,777 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder between the years 2001-2021 in the Clalit dataset. This sample was used to assess whether patients who received at any time clozapine, olanzapine, and quetiapine had a higher risk of major negative and metabolic events. The analysis found that patients who received these medications were at a higher risk of developing metabolic outcomes and most major negative events. Based on these findings, the study aims to have a sample size large enough to detect these associations and allow for meaningful conclusions to be drawn from the data.