Lifestyle
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Lifestyle - Developing a healthy lifestyle intervention for young people at-risk of psychosis
IRAS ID
184852
Contact name
Rebekah Carney
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
People with psychosis have poor physical health and are at risk of developing cardiovascular disease and long term physical health conditions. This comes from side effects of anti-psychotic medication, such as weight gain, and living an unhealthy lifestyle. People in the initial stages of psychosis, who present with symptoms for the first time, display signs of poor physical health. Recent evidence suggests people have an unhealthy lifestyle even before this point.
Specialist services are set up to help identify and provide support to young people at risk for psychosis. They present with emerging psychotic symptoms, but they may not be as severe or long-lasting as people with psychosis have. There has not been much research looking at physical health and unhealthy lifestyle factors in young people at-risk for psychosis. However, the studies which have been done suggest they also have high rates of unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as smoking and low physical activity. We will explore this further, as living an unhealthy lifestyle contributes to future ill-health, and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. If an individual does develop psychosis, they will most likely receive antipsychotic medication, further contributing to long term health complaints.
We aim to explore service users’ views about lifestyle, including barriers and facilitators of healthy living to establish an acceptable healthy living intervention. This will cover content, setting, and delivery of an intervention, in an interview lasting 1 hour. We will also be conducting individual interviews with staff members from the at-risk service and parents or carers of young people attending the service to see what might be an acceptable intervention.REC name
East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0559
Date of REC Opinion
9 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion