MHRU research themes
An overview of the different themes currently being explored by the Mental Health Research Unit.
Meeting mental healthcare workforce challenges
The greatest asset of any health service is its staff. They are essential to healthcare provision and their working conditions contribute to the quality of care received by patients. Currently there are global shortages of health care staff, and many organisations struggle to recruit and retain health professionals at all levels and all clinical disciplines. Our research is focussed on improving the experience of health staff so they can provide high quality patient care.
We are undertaking research on new roles in mental health services with colleagues from Sheffield University Management School, following our study of staff retention (RoMHS), which interviewed over 200 NHS clinical staff about their reasons for staying or leaving their current role.
Research links
Retention of Mental Health Staff Study (RoMHS)
New Roles in Mental Health Study (NRinMH)
Addressing mental and physical multimorbidity
Mental and physical health are closely linked. Having a physical health condition increases the risk of developing a mental health condition and visa versa. People who experience the most serious mental health problems are also at risk of premature death. Different health conditions interact and affect how people respond to treatment. These links are partly caused by lifestyle factors such as smoking and lack of physical activity, which can be difficult to change.
Current studies include the SPACES programme, led by colleagues at Bangor University, which aims to develop and test ways to increase physical activity among people with serious mental illness; and the DIME study (based in Oxford) which is piloting different diets (including a ketogenic diet) for people with persistent depression.
Social interventions are important in improving both physical and mental health, perhaps by reducing isolation and loneliness. Our previous research found that social prescribing interventions for people with serious mental illness helped by increasing confidence and self-efficacy. Our current research uses the experiences of those who delivered social prescribing interventions during the covid-19 pandemic to help understand how these approaches work, and which aspects are most valued by service users.
Research links
Patient Centred Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Study (PCAAAS)
Mental health of people with Mesothelioma (MINNOW)
Improving delivery of mental healthcare
Integrated care is central to the NHS Long-Term Plan and the Community Mental Health Framework. Together with colleagues in Bristol, we are undertaking research funded by NIHR to better understand integrated mental healthcare (and how to deliver it) from the perspectives of service users, clinicians and managers in different parts of the NHS as well as the voluntary sector.
We are undertaking research to reduce inequalities in the access, experience and outcomes of mental health care which are impacted by ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities. Work on socioeconomic inequality includes research which found evidence of variation between neighbourhoods in psychological therapy outcomes which was explained by deprivation.
We are also currently evaluating the implementation of the NHS’s first anti-racism framework, the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF), that is being adopted throughout Sheffield Health and Social Care Foundation Trust services. This work is funded by the Mental Health Improvement Network, as part of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (NIHR ARC).
Better use of routine mental healthcare data is important for improving care and optimising outcomes. Our previous research found that people with serious mental illness (SMI) were more frequent users of acute and urgent medical care, including NHS111, ambulance callouts and Emergency Department (ED) attendances. Our research has also identified variations in treatment outcome by therapist and setting.
Understanding how mental health services are experienced and what people who use them value a key part of current mental healthcare policy. Our previous research looked at how patient experience data are collected and used in NHS mental healthcare (EURIPIDES). We are currently developing research to understand and improve the use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) to support delivery of community mental health services and outcomes for service users.
Research links
Connecting Community Mental Health Support Study
Improving public mental health
We are part of the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR). Previous research includes a large systematic review of the psychometric properties of outcome measures suitable for use in evaluating population-based public health research.
Current research includes the use of simulation modelling to estimate the long-term and life-course cost-effectiveness of whole-school interventions to improve pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.
Research links
Identifying and validating a core public mental health outcome set
Modelling the effectiveness of whole-school public mental health interventions