What does taking part involve?

People who decide to take part in the project will be asked to complete some assessments with the researcher.  These are standard questionnaires without any right or wrong answers and are carried out to get an overall picture of how participants in the project are doing at the moment.  The assessments cover issues like mood, thoughts, use of mental health services, medication side effects, and the participant’s adjustment to life as they were growing up. 

Each interview will take up to two hours, but can be done at an individual’s own pace.  We can spread them over several meetings and you have the chance to take breaks and ask questions throughout.  We hope to ask some of these questions again after 6 months and after 12 months, to see how people are getting on. Some of the questionnaires may cover issues that are sensitive and/or distressing– but people can stop if they feel uncomfortable at any stage of the interview, and refuse to answer questionnaires that they feel are too distressing. 

If people decide to take part we will also ask permission to contact a relative to ask them a small number of questionnaires too. The purpose of this is to find out more about how the participant has been getting on, from the relative’s point of view. However, participants may decline permission to contact a relative and still take part in the study. 

In addition we ask for consent for some assessment interviews and sessions to be  audiotaped or video taped for the purpose of training, and for ensuring the researchers all keep to the same research format. Declining to do so at any time will not affect  participation in the trial in any way.

 Finally having gathered all this information from the interviews it will be put into a database and analysed together with data from other clients.

What is done to make ensure of confidentiality and anonymity?

Names and addresses will not appear on any of the information collected.  Instead we use a code to keep people’s identity anonymous.  That way, anonymity will be preserved when we analyse the information or write reports about the project

What will be done with the information?

GPs will be informed that their clients are taking part in the project and their information will be kept on a secure anonymous database. We will also provide a summary of the information collected for the clinical teams in charge of their clients’ care plan. Participants in the project have the right to refuse this feedback to the clinical team.