Healthy weight management

Background

People with severe mental illness (SMI) experience a mortality gap of 15-20 years compared with people without SMI. One of the main contributing factors to early mortality in this group is preventable physical health conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  Maintaining a healthy weight and a healthy diet is an important factor in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other physical health conditions.

However, people with SMI are 2-3 times more likely to be overweight or obese than people without SMI and are less likely to consume the recommended portions of fruit and vegetables. This is due to a variety of factors including the side effects of medication, lack of exercise, higher rates of poverty and access to healthy foods. Interventions that mitigate the weight gain associated with antipsychotic medications have been highlighted as top priorities by the James Lind Alliance. It is therefore important that an effective weight management and medication management programme is developed to meet the needs of people with SMI.

MoreLife, a subsidiary company of Leeds Beckett University, have a proven track record of delivering their NICE-compliant, healthy weight management programme within the NHS. Their Tier 3 adult weight management programme is a multi-component lifestyle intervention which focuses on reducing body weight. The programme has the potential to be tailored to meet the needs of people with SMI. We intend to apply for research funding to undertake this work.

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Aims and objectives

• Identify areas of the MoreLife programme and training that need tailoring to meet the needs of people with SMI
• Explore medication management and how this can be embedded within the MoreLife intervention and resultant trial design
• Conduct a mapping exercise across NHS Mental Health Trusts to determine what usual care for weight management comprises
• Analyse routinely collected data from MoreLife to explore the characteristics and outcomes of people with SMI who have accessed the programme

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Funding

This research has been funded by NIHR Research Capability Funding (RCF), administered by Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust.

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Protecting patients

This study involves data collected by MoreLife. This data will allow us to assess the effectiveness of the MoreLife intervention and inform the study design of our funding application.

Data transferred will include weight at four-time points, medication use, number of sessions attended/completed and duration of sessions, age, gender, level of education and smoking status. No patient identifying information (e.g. name, date of birth or address) will be transferred to the researchers. All identifiable data will be removed by MoreLife before it is transferred. There is no way for the research team to attribute data to specific individuals. To that end, it is not possible for users of MoreLife to remove their information from our dataset. No record-level data will be transferred to third countries or international organisations.

This dataset will be deleted 12 months after the completion of this preparatory study – 31 December 2024.

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Data controller

The University of Sheffield is the Data Controller for this study. Please see the University of Sheffield General Privacy Notice for information on the handling of personal data by the university for research (e.g. this study), including details of the data protection officer, supervisory authority, right of complaint, and lawful basis for data processing under GDPR.

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Contact information

Katie Biggs
Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research
Regent Court
30 Regent Street
S1 4DA

Email: c.e.biggs@sheffield.ac.uk