Principal Investigator: Prof Swapna Verma, Senior Consultant, Dept of Early Psychosis Intervention and General Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health
Study Period: Dec 2016 – Dec 2018
Recovery in mental illness is often defined by an outcome-based or process-based manner. There is currently a lack of research where researchers and patients in recovery work together to define recovery and co-create a recovery-oriented care. The aim of this work is to investigate what recovery means for our clients in the Early Psychosis Intervention Programme (EPIP) using the participatory action research (PAR) method. The PAR method combines academic research and lived experiences to generate more knowledge.
The study will firstly identify the research focus and cover questions such as “What recovery means to service-users?” Following that the study team will agree on an action plan to investigate the perspective of recovery from our clients and then collect the data through focus group discussions or in depth interviews. Finally, data will be analysed and an action plan for the future will be developed.
This is a collaborative study between IMH, Changi General Hospital and the Work, Safety and Health Institute of the Ministry of Manpower. The Principal Investigator is Dr Angelina Chan from CGH, and the co-investigators from IMH are Asst. Prof Mythily Subramaniam and Dr Edimansyah Abdin.
This study aims to:
- Develop and validate a local instrument for assessment of the psychosocial health of employees, identification of work-related stressors and companies' management of psychosocial risks
- Determine the nature and prevalence of work-related psychosocial ill health in selected industries / organisations
- Identify potential risk factors or stressors for work-related psychosocial ill health
- Determine the extent of inclusion of psychosocial risk hazards into organisations' work, safety and health risk assessment and understand companies’ current management of psychosocial hazards.
The study will consist of two phases:
Phase 1: Development and validation of the psychosocial health research instrument. It will comprise of focus group discussions with 30 to 50 employees of different education levels to ensure the instrument’s face validity, followed by survey administration to 1500 employees in a few selected organisations for the purpose of statistical validation of the questionnaire.
Phase 2: Conduct field survey using the validated psychosocial instrument to 4500 employees from selected organisations in selected industries e.g. public administration/education industry, healthcare and social services industry, financial and insurance services industry, legal services industry.
The two-year cross-sectional study, funded under the NHG-Small Innovative Grant, “Multimorbidity in primary care and its association with depression, anxiety and quality of life (MDAQ)”, is a collaborative study between the National Healthcare Group Polyclinics (NHGP) and the Research Division of the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). This study was awarded the NHG Small Innovative Grant (SIG) funding in FY14. The Principal Investigator is Dr Lee Eng Sing of NHGP, and the co-investigators are Asst. Prof Mythily Subramaniam and Ms Janhavi Ajit Vaingankar of IMH.
The study aims to (1) establish the prevalence and severity of psychological distress and the quality of life experienced by patients with multimorbidity in the primary care setting in Singapore, and (2) elucidate the association between multimorbidity and psychological distress, quality of life, and socio-economic status. Over 700 patients with the three commonest chronic conditions – Diabetes, Hypertension and Dyslipidaemia - will be interviewed at a Polyclinic to assess the severity of multimorbidity, and the level of psychological distress and quality of life.
The study was launched in August 2014 and findings of the study will help to influence priority setting and policy-making on how to better manage patients with multimorbidity in a primary care setting.
Principle Investigator: Edimansyah Abdin, Senior Biostatistician, Research Division, Institute of Mental Health
Study Period: January 2016 - February 2019
Mediation analysis which is a fast growing field in epidemiology may help to disentangle the complexity of the interrelation between socio-demographic factors, mental disorders, chronic physical conditions, severity of illnesses and health outcomes. This proposal aims to apply a set of new statistical methods for causal mediation analysis that could enhance our understanding of the pathways that link socio-demographic factors, chronic mental and medical conditions to health outcomes. This will in turn provide evidence for the rational formulation of policies and for developing effective interventions.
The development and refinement of mediation analysis as a tool for mental health epidemiological studies will utilize 2 large databases - the clinical database from the Early Psychosis Intervention Programme and that of the Well-being in the Singapore Elderly Study. Both of these projects are at the national level. A causal mediation analysis will be implemented using Mplus software version 6.0 and STATA software version 13.
The present study will focus on the usefulness of mediation modelling in data from the local early psychosis intervention programme and population-based survey of mental health among elderly population. We aim to show that the use of this new method of analysis will provide greater insight into the nature of treatment effects of our existing intervention programme and evidence for the existence of pathways that link risk factors to health outcomes in people with mental illness that could be used to inform health promotion and disease prevention strategies. It would also demonstrate the potential of mediation analysis in other complex interrelations in epidemiological studies.
