Community Outpatient Psychotherapy Engagement Service for Self-harm
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Community Outpatient Psychotherapy Engagement Service for Self-harm (COPESS): A feasibility trial
IRAS ID
275047
Contact name
Pooja Saini
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Self-harm refers to any intentional self-injury or self-poisoning, with or without the intention to end one’s life. People who self-harm are at high risk of suicide, and often experience a range of social and mental health issues and considerable emotional distress. Depression is common with an estimated 70% of those who self-harm also experiencing depressive symptoms. The aim of the brief intervention being used in this study is to reduce psychological distress and future self-harm. However, self-harm services are sparse and many people receive no help at all. To our knowledge, there have been no evaluations of psychological treatments for people with depression who self-harm in the UK, and it is unclear which community-based treatments might work best for people who selfharm. We have developed a brief psychological intervention called the Community Outpatient Psychotherapy Engagement Service for Self-harm (COPESS), which seeks to reduce depression and self-harm. A similar intervention has been successfully piloted in a hospital emergency department, but we plan to base COPESS in a community setting in order to increase access for people who self-harm but who do not go to hospital. We will recruit people aged 16 or over, who have depression and have recently self-harmed and randomly allocate them to either the COPESS intervention or to treatment as usual as defined within National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance 2018. The main purpose of this study is to find out whether it is possible to recruit people to take part in this intervention, and to see if they will attend all sessions. If COPESS proves to be an effective intervention then this new model of care has the potential to be delivered more widely as an effective, low cost, convenient, safe and easily deliverable intervention.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/NW/0063
Date of REC Opinion
25 Mar 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion