Social IDEntity Mapping and Interviews - IDEM
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding social identity in psychosis: social identity mapping and interviews (IDEM)
IRAS ID
238133
Contact name
Mebh Conneely McInerney
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Queen Mary University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
As social beings, we derive a part of our sense of who we are from our relationships and the groups we belong to. This sense of identity derived from belonging to a group is called “social identity”. People may have many, few or no social identities, and this may change throughout the course of a person’s life. Research has found that having more strong social identities is linked to better mental and physical health, in particular through times of change. Psychosis, often characterized by hallucinations, delusions and a loss of contact with reality is an overwhelming and often distressing experience. Being diagnosed and living with psychosis (for this study defined as disorders in the F20 category of the International Classification of Diseases-10) is likely to have an important effect on people's sense of self and relationships with others. Despite this, scarce research has investigated social identity in psychosis.
This research aims to fill this gap with a mixed-method study comprising two parts: 1) a quantitative cross-sectional survey exploring associations between social identity features, symptoms, quality of life and service use 2) in-depth interviews.The quantitative study will involve 200 participants recruited from inpatient wards, outpatient clinical settings (East London NHS Foundation Trust, ELFT) and non-clinical settings (Greenwich Hearing Voices). Only patients who have the capacity to consent to research will be invited to take part. Participants will create a visual representation of their social identities (a social identity map) and answer questionnaires assessing symptoms, quality of life and service use. The qualitative study will involve a sub-sample of participants being interviewed about their social identities, and their experience of completing the social identity map.
This study is being conducted as part of doctoral research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0799
Date of REC Opinion
9 Aug 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion