Recovery focused CBT for older adults with bipolar disorder
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A pilot study to test the feasibility and acceptability of delivering recovery focused cognitive-behavioural therapy to older adults with bipolar disorder
IRAS ID
163066
Contact name
Elizabeth Tyler
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Lancaster University
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a severe and chronic mental health problem that persists into older adulthood. Current estimates suggest around 0.5% of people over 65 years of age are living with BD (Depp and Jeste, 2004). However this figure is set to rise as the UK experiences a rapid ageing of its population (United Nations,2002). The NICE guidelines for BD (2006) highlight the absence of evidence for older adults (OA) with regards to psychosocial interventions and there are currently no published randomised controlled trials (RCT) studies evaluating psychosocial interventions for later life BD. The aim of the research is to adapt a recovery focused CBT intervention (RfCBT: Jones et al, 2013) developed by our group for working age adults, for an OA population. A recent RCT has found RfCBT to be effective on both functional and symptomatic outcomes (Jones et al, in submission) and recovery informed interventions of this type are now recommended by the UK government (Department of Health,2011).
The first stage of the study is to conduct a transdiagnostic systematic review of psychological interventions for older adults. This will provide insight into effective psychological therapies and adaptations made to these for the treatment of mental health problems in later life. This information will be used during the intervention development at stage 2. During stage 2 a number of focus groups will take place with individuals with lived experience of BD and an ‘expert’ clinical and academic group. They groups will be asked to comment on the content of the draft manual and the acceptability and suitability of the intervention for the proposed client group. Finally, during stage 3 the intervention will be tested out using a RCT to determine the feasibility and acceptability of RfCBT-OA plus treatment as usual (TAU) compared with TAU.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0330
Date of REC Opinion
22 May 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion