PsyGrid: e-Science to Improve the Understanding and Treatment of People in their First Episode of Psychosis

Establishing an e-community on the basis of the Mental Health Research Network will have as one of its longer term aims a promotion of new ways to engage the public in issues concerning mental health research. Public education and engagement is part of the wider brief of the National Institute for Mental Health (England) and this proposal fits in closely to this.

Severe mental illness (psychosis) is a major public health challenge. Current health policy has a focus on early intervention in the first episode of psychosis as a way of improving outcomes. The evidence for which interventions are best is patchy. Improving this evidence base is a core rationale for the newly formed Mental Health Research Network (MHRN www.mhrn.info) of the National Institute of Mental Health England. The twin aims of this proposal are:- 1) to establish an e-Science framework and functioning e-community which integrates academic and NHS partners in MHRN, so as to enhance research and development capability in routine mental health service settings; 2) to set up an information system to ascertain and characterise a large, representative cohort of individuals with first episode psychosis to enable hypothesis-driven epidemiological and intervention research, particularly into predicting and preventing adverse outcomes. PsyGrid will provide a flexible e-Science/Grid infrastructure deployed over NHSnet using existing governance arrangements for handling clinical data. We will leverage as much existing e-Science software development as possible, working closely with our e-Science Centres and our industrial partner (Microsoft). The PsyGrid e-Science platform will inform, launch and facilitate future externally-funded, hypothesis-driven research in four priority areas in this field: longitudinal studies of risk and protective factors for long-term outcomes, including aetiological inquiry; clinical trials in early psychosis; biological studies of the nature of clinical progression; and new methodologies for evidence-based service developments.