Precision Child and Adolescent Mental Health
In precision medicine, interventions are tailored to meet the specific needs of individuals.
Evidence from other contexts suggests that precision medicine has benefits for effective treatment outcomes and efficient resource use. However, there is a lack of evidence in child mental health about which characteristics of a young person are associated with treatment outcome and resource use – crucial to underpin any precision medicine model.
The aim of this research was to address this gap and expand the use of data resources for mental health research while further developing the skills base in this complex field. The Child Outcomes Research Consortium (CORC) and the Evidence Based Practice Unit linked data about young people accessing child mental health services from the Mental Health Services Data Set (shared by NHS Digital) to the CORC dataset. MQ supported this work.
Maintaining children and young people’s anonymity was vital. We linked the datasets using a probabilistic method, working with variables such as gender, care contact date and organisation/team details. We drew on this data to explore associations between case-mix characteristics, effective treatment outcomes and efficient resource use. The project then worked with young people, carers and therapists to explore the best ways of using this type of information in clinical discussions with young people and families.
Please contact corc@annafreud.org for more information on this project.
Chief investigator: Professor Jess Deighton