Characteristics of rehabilitation services and their clients

A three year study funded by the Irish Mental Health Commission commenced July 2007 to survey characteristics of rehabilitation services and their clients in Ireland, where there has been considerable Governmental investment in this area in recent years. Outcomes for service users who do and do not have access to rehabilitation services in five geographical areas will be assessed and compared over 18 months. Psychometric testing of a measure of social functioning for this client group is also being carried out as part of this study. Dr Ena Lavelle (Chair of the Irish College’s Faculty of Rehabilitation Psychiatry) is the Chief Investigator. For more information contact Dr Ena Lavelle, St Ita’s Hospital, North Dublin Mental Health Services, Ireland

DEMoBinc

The “DEMoB.inc” Study (Development of a European Measure of Best Practice for People with Long Term Mental Illness in Institutional Care) has been funded by the European Commission for three years from March 2007 to develop a toolkit to assess the quality of institutional care for this service user group. The study involves ten European centres and the Chief Investigator is Dr Helen Killaspy, University College London. Find out more about this study.

Effectiveness of community treatment orders

The department of Social Psychiatry in Oxford is currently setting up a randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of community treatment orders when they become available in October this year. We are hoping to recruit approximately 300 participants from across much of the country and will be working closely with many assertive outreach teams. Various outcome measures will be used (hospital stays, social care costs, social functioning, symptom severity etc).The chief investigator is Tom Burns. If anyone would like more information, contact Sue Woods. 

The Matisse Study

The Matisse study (Multicentre study of Art Therapy In Schizophrenia: Systematic Evaluation) is a three year randomised controlled trial that started in December 2006 to investigate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of group art therapy for people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The study involves four centres: West London Mental Health Trust and Imperial College London; Camden & Islington Foundation Trust and University College London; Avon & Wiltshire Partnership Trust; and Queen’s University Belfast. The study is being run with the assistance of the Mental Health Research Network and the Principal Investigators are Dr Mike Crawford (Imperial College), Dr Helen Killaspy (UCL) and Professor Di Waller (Goldsmith’s College). For more information, contact Dr Helen Killaspy.

National survey on housing services

A national survey on housing services for people with mental health problems funded by the Department of Health (CSIP) has been conducted by the unit for Social and Community Psychiatry at Barts and the London School of Medicine (Queen Mary University of London). In 12 representative geographical areas of England, data were collected from a total of 149 services and over 400 residents. The findings show that – according to managers – basic needs of patients are met in most services, but programmes for active rehabilitation and involvement of secondary mental health care services are limited. The results have been submitted for publication. For more information please contact Stefan Priebe.

Outcomes following first episode psychosis

Improving employment outcomes following a first episode of psychosis: This is a three-year study funded by the Research for Patient Benefit programme. It will test an enhancement to the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of vocational rehabilitation based on providing the wider clinical team including employment specialist with training in motivational interviewing, comparing employment and educational outcomes in teams providing the combined intervention with others providing IPS alone. The study will run in 4 UK centres - two in London and two in Birmingham/Warwick. The Principal Investigators are:

• Tom Craig (IoP, London)
• Miles Rinaldi (SWLondon and St Georges)
• Geoff Shepherd (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health) 
• Swaran Singh (Uni. Warwick).

For further details contact t.craig@iop.kcl.ac.uk

REFOCUS

The National Institute for Health Research have funded a five-year Programme Grant for Applied Research called REFOCUS. The main aim of this programme is to improve the extent to which mental health services promote recovery. It will meet this aim in four steps. First, indicators of a recovery focus will be identified and applied throughout England. Second, interventions which promote recovery will be evaluated and synthesised into a coherent single ‘recovery manual’. Third, measures of the impact on important aspects of recovery (e.g. hope, identity, meaning, empowerment) will be tested, as well as two approaches to individual patients identifying their goals. Finally, the findings from these studies will inform a randomised controlled trial in two mental health trusts in England. Teams in the two sites will be randomly allocated to either receive or not receive the interventions contained in the recovery manual, and the impact of the intervention will be tested by comparing the results for the two groups. The study is led by Mike Slade.

RETRAIN

The RETRAIN study: is an evaluation of 'Recovery' training for mental health professionals funded by the Guy's and St Thomas' Charity. The study involves all staff working in rehabilitation, community and early intervention services in the Lambeth and Southwark Boroughs of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The Principal Investigators are Mike Slade (IoP, London) Tom Craig (IoP, London) and Sara Tresilian (South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust). For more information contact Tom Craig.