The QUBES Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Qualitative Understandings of the links between Black-caribbean life ExperienceS and psychosis (QUBES)
IRAS ID
169381
Contact name
Luke Brown
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 4 months, 31 days
Research summary
Psychosis is a collective term used to describe a range of medical diagnoses that all have in common the symptoms of hallucinations or delusions. Research has shown that individuals from migrant and ethnic minority communities (Black-Caribbean and African communities in particular) are four to six time more likely to have this disorder. Quantitative methods have highlighted many proximal risk factors, such as social adversity across the life course, negative life experiences or being from a social defeated group (parental separation, childhood neglect/abuse and experiences of victimisation). Although we are aware that these factors are important, we are yet to understand how and why these are important; in particular the mechanisms by which social adversity, social defeat and negative life experiences are connected to the development of psychosis. Qualitative methods have a particular strength in understanding in-depth psychological processes, however as of yet; no published qualitative work has been used to explore the accounts of patients to help explain why these groups are at an elevated risk.
This study uses a narrative qualitative approach (McAdams’ life chapter’s method) to identify the life events and experiences that are significant from the accounts of 15 Black-Caribbean patients with psychosis. It also attempts to identify how these patients make sense of these experiences and links it to the development of their first psychotic episode.
The qualitative interviews will be analysed by two approaches. Firstly, thematic Analysis (TA) will be used as a ‘broad-brush’ approach on all cases to identify the themes that emerge from the data. Secondly Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) will be used to analyse a sub set of the data, to provide an in-depth understanding of how experiences leading to psychosis are made sense of.
The outputs of the project will then be compared and contrasted to the literature, to help elaborate on contemporary explanatory paradigms and to generate new hypotheses in the area.
REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/WM/0306
Date of REC Opinion
19 Oct 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion