Psychosis Interest Network East Anglia

NIHR Health Technology Assessment; Jo Hodgekins (UEA), David Fowler (Sussex)

This study is testing a new therapy called Social Recovery Therapy (SRT) to help people with schizophrenia who struggle with social isolation and doing daily activities. There are limited treatment options for this group who often struggle to recover in existing services. The trial will compare usual care with and without SRT, aiming to see if SRT helps people spend more time in structured activities like work or education. Researchers will also look at mental health, quality of life, and cost-effectiveness. The study includes interviews to understand how the therapy works in real life, especially for underserved groups, and will help guide wider NHS use if successful.

NIHR Advanced Clinical Academic Fellowship - Sarah Reeve (UEA)

Sedation is among the most common side effects of antipsychotic medication, but it is often overlooked by clinicians and there are limited routes to resolve it (especially where medication cannot be altered). The fellowship will focus on developing improved measurement of sedation, understanding impacts of sedation, and identifying where we can improve clinical practice around sedation. 

NIHR Doctoral Fellowship - Sophie Allan (UEA)

Health inequalities exist across conditions, but are particularly apparent in psychosis. For example, people from minority ethnic groups have higher rates of psychosis and are much more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act. This NIHR Doctoral Fellowship aims to understand these inequalities in more detail. The first part is a qualitative systematic review of psychosis treatment experiences from people from ethnic minority backgrounds (PROSPERO). The second part are a series of empirical studies examining the effects of ethnicity and neighbourhood effects (ethnic density, urbanicity/rurality, deprivation) on long-term (up to 15 year) psychosis outcomes, including hospital admissions, treatment (medication, psychological interventions) and mortality. We will be using the CRIS dataset from South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust Research Database. Findings will be relevant to those interested in psychosis recovery and differences in outcomes between groups, including patients, carers, clinicians, and policy-makers.

The fellowship is supervised by Dr Sheri Oduola and Dr Jo Hodgekins.

NIHR Research for Patient Benefit - Miriam Fornells-Ambrojo (UCL); James Plaistow (CPFT)

Our overall research questions are whether it is feasible and acceptable to deliver, and test through a pilot randomised control trial, Narrative Exposure Therapy in Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) services to reduce symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); and whether preliminary evidence from this study is congruent with the intervention being effective. If feasible and promising evidence are reported, this will inform the evaluation of the effectiveness of this intervention in a future fully powered randomised controlled trial. This could increase the offer of trauma focussed interventions and improve outcomes for people in EIP, reducing delays in recovery and therefore expense and suffering for service users and their carers.