Belief-updating and speech: potential markers of psychosis relapse
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Using belief-updating and speech to predict psychosis relapse
IRAS ID
323994
Contact name
Kelly Diederen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Psychotic illnesses are characterised by hallucinations, delusions, and disturbed thoughts; symptoms associated with high personal and societal costs (Vigo et al, 2016). Despite the efficacy of antipsychotic medication, approximately 84% of patients experience at least one relapse within 36 months of their first episode (Fusar-Poli et al., 2016). Thus, identifying patients who will relapse and who will not, and then providing specific treatment to patients who are more likely to relapse is clinically meaningful. Belief-updating and speech are promising markers to predict first episode psychosis (FEP) patients future relapse outcome, as there has been evidence linking these two markers with the onset and progression of psychotic symptoms (Diederen & Fletcher, 2021; Spencer et al., 2021).
The present study will collect cognitive measures relating to belief-updating and speech in patients with FEP at baseline, and build models to predict relapse based on these measures. Belief updating tasks include simple video games (escaping from a planet in the Space Task and a reversal learning task). To collect speech, participants will be asked to describe ambiguous pictures. The study uses a naturalistic follow-up design; data will be collected from 140 FEP patients recruited from local clinical teams and 100 healthy controls recruited from advertisements. Cognitive tasks will be conducted via an online platform Gorilla using participants’ own device (e.g. computer, laptop, smartphone and tablet). Clinical interviews can take place either online or face-to-face. Participants will attend three assessments in total, at baseline and at 6-month and 12-month follow-up. Each visit will comprise two components 1) cognitive tasks (45-60 minutes) and basic demographics, 2) clinical interviews.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/EM/0102
Date of REC Opinion
17 Jun 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion