Identifying treatment for IAPT attendees with personality difficulties

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Identifying the most appropriate treatment for IAPT attendees with depression and co-morbid personality difficulties

• IRAS ID

  206188

• Contact name

  Katrina Turner

• Contact email

  katrina.turner@ bristol.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Research and Enterprise Development, University of Bristol

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 6 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  About a quarter of primary care patients have personality difficulties. These patients often experience poor physical and mental health. GPs can refer patients with common mental health problems to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. This programme was established in 2008 and in 2011 the government expanded its scope to include the treatment of individuals with personality disorders, many of whom will have personality difficulties.

  This development was specifically viewed as supporting GPs in managing these patients. Little is known about how GPs view this development. This change was not accompanied by additional training for IAPT practitioners or additional treatments specifically tailored to the needs of patients with personality difficulties. Moreover, research suggests that such patients do not respond to IAPT treatments as well as patients without personality difficulties, indicating a need to identify new treatments or at least to modify existing treatments to improve clinical outcomes for this patient group.

  Any new or modified treatment would need to be acceptable to GPs, IAPT therapists, clinical leads and service users, and be deliverable by existing services. The aim of this study is to interview these professionals and service users to explore their views regarding which psychological treatment they think would be most appropriate to manage IAPT service users with personality difficulties. Around 10 GPs, 5 clinical leads, 15 therapists and 15 service users will be interviewed. The interviews will be audio-recorded, fully transcribed and analysed so that the views practitioners and services users hold towards specific issues will be summarised and highlighted. The findings will be of value to GPs, IAPT practitioners and clinical commissioners, and will directly feed into a future research grant that will explore the effectiveness of the treatment identified within this study, in the management of IAPT service users with personality difficulties.

• REC name

  South West - Cornwall & Plymouth Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  16/SW/0229

• Date of REC Opinion

  5 Oct 2016

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion