Precision in Psychiatry Study (PIPS)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  A computational approach to identifying trans-diagnostic predictors for mental health treatment response

• IRAS ID

  270623

• Contact name

  Claire Gillan

• Contact email

  GILLANCL@tcd.ie

• Sponsor organisation

  Trinity College Dublin

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 11 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  In mental health, it’s not that we lack effective treatments, it’s that certain treatments will only work for certain people. Without tools that can tell us what treatment is right for what person, practitioners are forced to prescribe a first-line treatment and adopt a wait-and-see approach. Patients who do not benefit after several weeks of treatment are moved to a second-line treatment and clinicians must wait and see again. The associated individual and societal burden is enormous.
  A key goal for modern mental health research is to improve the precision with which we allocate treatments. Central to the problem is the fact that mental health disorders are not unitary phenomena. They arise from the interaction of many genes, each of which interact strongly with environmental factors, such as early adversity, stress, nutrition, social support and so on. This means that even in patients who show extremely similar symptoms, mental health practitioners are often dealing with different underlying pathologies that are destined to respond preferentially to different treatment approaches. Unfortunately, the science has not reached a point where the vast majority of this complexity can be leveraged to the patient’s benefit. But, we (The Gillan Lab, with the support of our funders, MQ Mental Health) are striving to make progress with this through a large-scale observational study and the application of predictive machine learning.

  This research requires participation from thousands of patients who are just about to start a course of Online Cognitive behavioural therapy. To collect a sample of this size, it would normally take years using a traditional in-person research methodology – but it’s clear that the mental health community at large simply cannot wait. To address this, we have developed an innovative internet-based methodology that allows people to complete participation from the comfort of their own homes.

• REC name

  North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  20/NW/0020

• Date of REC Opinion

  28 Jan 2020

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion