Black women's experiences of psychosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
What are the lived experiences of Black women with psychosis and how do they make sense of these experiences?An IPA study.
IRAS ID
336759
Contact name
Arcellia Sasu-Twum
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of leeds
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 30 days
Research summary
Research has consistently shown increased rates of psychosis in Black people (African and Caribbean) compared to their White counterparts in the UK and increased rates apply to both Black men and women. Lots of different explanations have been proposed, however the underlying mechanisms are still not well understood. Despite an increased risk for Black women as well as men, psychosis research has mainly focused on the experiences of Black men. This under-representation of Black women is present not only in psychosis research, but in mental health research in general as well as in physical health literature. Additionally, as men and women often have different life experiences, for example in relation to parenting, work and interests, it is important to explore whether their experiences of psychosis are also different. Therefore, this research aims to address this gap in the literature by exploring Black women's experiences of psychosis and what meaning they have made of these experiences. This will be done by conducting interviews with Black women with psychosis. Exploring this could potentially help services understand how to become more culturally informed, making sure that they are catering to the needs of Black women and not just the Black population overall. This research will involve interviewing Black women with psychosis and aims to recruit between 6 - 10 people from Early Intervention Services. The interviews will be audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a common method for analysing qualitative data that is aligned with the study.
REC name
London - Surrey Borders Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/LO/0482
Date of REC Opinion
6 Aug 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion