People with serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are more likely to have physical health problems. For example, they are more likely to have heart attacks and strokes than people with no mental illness. The difference is so marked that people with serious mental illnesses have a life expectancy between 10 and 20 years shorter, compared with everyone else. The reasons for this are complicated, and might include higher rates of smoking and poverty, and side effects of medications. Another possible reason is that they may find it harder to access healthcare.
To try to improve the health of people with serious mental illnesses, a yearly physical health check with the General Practitioner (GP) or mental health team is offered to everyone with a serious mental illness. Plenty of research has tried to improve the number of people who go to these checks. Surprisingly, there is not much research into how well the checks work to improve long-term health.
For this PhD project, we plan to undertake three separate studies. First, we will review of all the research published so far about what helps and hinders people from attending the checks. We will then write a research article summarising everything that is known about this.
For the second study, we will look at the anonymised GP records for thousands of people with serious mental illnesses, to see whether the people who attended the check regularly had better health over time than people who did not. In other words, are the checks working?
For the third study, we will carry out interviews with people with serious mental illnesses who have recently attended their annual physical health check. We will also interview professionals who regularly carry out the checks. We will ask them about which aspects of the check they find helpful, or less helpful. We will also ask them how they think that overall health and lifestyle changed because of the checks. We will summarise and represent their views, anonymously, in a research paper.
In conducting these three studies, we will work alongside the local NHS mental health trust, to help recruit people to the interviews and understand the concerns of healthcare professionals. We will also feed our findings back into the NHS so that they can be used by healthcare professionals who are trying to improve the physical health of people with serious mental illnesses. We will also invite people who have serious mental illnesses to help shape and guide the research. We will publish the findings in academic journals so that researchers and health professionals outside of the local area can access them, to assist their work in trying to make the checks as useful as possible in improving long term health.
Our hope is that our findings from this project will be used to make sure that people with serious mental illnesses receive not just physical health checks, but physical health checks which extend their life expectancy and improve their quality of life.
How to apply:
- Details on how to apply can be found here: https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/making-the-most-of-the-annual-physical-health-check-for-people-with-mental-illnesses/?p181802
- Applicants should also complete the online LISS-DTP Diversity Monitoring Form
- The closing date for applications is 14 February 2025
- Interviews will be held on 10 March 2025
- This project is offered as full-time or part-time
- For any queries contact Patrick Mullan p.mullan@qmul.ac.uk