Cervical screening informed choice tool for women with mental illness
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development, usability and acceptability of an informed choice tool on cervical screening for women diagnosed with a serious mental illness
IRAS ID
233934
Contact name
Rachel Frederique Lamontagne-Godwin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of West London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 2 days
Research summary
The main aim of this PhD is for women diagnosed with a serious mental illness, to improve their ability to decide whether to attend a cervical screening test (previously known as a smear test) by developing and testing an informed choice tool. People with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder diagnoses have a lower life expectancy of 10-20 years than the general population. One cause of this inequality is having developed a physical health condition. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in this group. One reason for poorer survival rates after being diagnosed with cancer is unequal access to cancer screening, which can improve survival with early detection. There is a low uptake by people diagnosed with a serious mental illness of national cancer screening tests. Improving access to screening is a UK healthcare policy. No intervention for women diagnosed with a serious mental illness was identified in the existing literature to increase uptake of or access to cervical screening.
The research will contribute to knowledge by developing an informed choice tool for women diagnosed with a serious mental illness and explore their experience of using the tool. We will also ask health professionals for their feedback. We will recruit women diagnosed with a serious mental illness aged 25-64 (UK eligibility criteria for a smear test) and health professionals (psychiatrists, mental health nurses and physical health leads) in an urban (London) and rural (Dorset) Mental Health Trust to collect feedback on the content and design/layout of the tool. Service users will fill out two validated questionnaires to assess their decisional conflict to attend a smear test. At the end of this 36 month research we will better understand what women diagnosed with a serious mental illness require from a cervical screening informed choice tool and how they use it.REC name
South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/SC/0123
Date of REC Opinion
21 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion