RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences is leading a network of world-leading psychosis experts on a new training and research programme to improve care for people who experience psychosis.
The research team involves clinicians and academics from across Ireland in the fields of psychiatry, nursing, social work, sociology and psychology, including an academic with lived experience of psychosis.
The Health Research Board-funded Opens in new windowPSI-STAR programme aims to address issues such as prediction and prevention of psychosis, reducing stigma related to the experience of psychosis, predicting physical health outcomes and life expectancy in people who experience psychosis and promoting their recovery.
The programme launch brought together a diverse team with organisational, arts, patient and public involvement (PPI), research, practitioner and academic expertise.
Professor David Cotter, Professor of Molecular Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, RCSI leads the PSI-STAR team which includes co-leads Professor Mary Cannon, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Youth Mental Health at RCSI and Professor Agnes Higgins, Professor in Mental Health, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin.
Psychosis, which includes diagnoses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, occur in about three in 100 people and usually start in adolescence or young adulthood.
The programme is training five PhD students to be leaders in the field of psychosis and make a positive impact on people’s lives.
PSI-STAR is funded through a Health Research Board Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA), a structured doctoral training program leading to the award of a PhD.
