GAP study Follow up, version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Biological phenotypes, environment, genes and Psychosis (GAP) Outcome
IRAS ID
209523
Contact name
Sir Robin Murray
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King s College London
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Schizophrenia and related psychoses are a major cause of ill-health and mortality, with an annual cost in England estimated at £11.8 billion. The causes of these disorders involve different combinations of risk factors, which are also likely to influence the illness outcome. The UK Schizophrenia Commission (2011) has pointed out that cannabis use is the most preventable among the risk factors for psychosis and that early intervention provides a major opportunity for improving outcome. Therefore, one key objective of this project is to establish the patterns of cannabis use that are especially likely to worsen Psychotic disorders outcome; furthermore to combine such information with a measure of genetic predisposition and other biological markers of disease status. IN this way we will hope to inform lifestyle changes and improve prevention.
Stress and exposure to social adversity have also been shown to increase risk to develop psychosis but there is less evidence indicating their impact on outcome. Therefore, we also aim to use to investigate the role of stress and its underlying biology on psychosis outcome.
Our proposed work could inform better-tailored public education campaigns, primary and secondary care interventions. Moreover, the biological markers of susceptibility to the effect of cannabis and stress in provoking the persistence of psychosis that we will investigate could indicate new drug targets to develop better interventions aimed at preventing or treating cannabis and stress related psychosis.REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
17/NI/0011
Date of REC Opinion
30 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion