What is the MICE Project?

Epilepsy is a brain disorder with seizures. It is the most common serious long-term illness in young people. At least half of young people with epilepsy also have mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and behaviour difficulties. Many people have more than one of these problems. Existing epilepsy services are separate from mental health services and mental health problems in young people with epilepsy may not be treated as well as they could be.

1. For this research, we have worked with health professionals, parents, children and young people to modify the Modular Approach to Therapy for Children (‘MATCH-ADTC’) so the treatment meets the special mental health needs of young people with epilepsy. We have done this by developing an extra module specifically to help children and young people with anxiety, depression or behaviour problems in the context of epilepsy.

2. We have also developed and evaluated a training package for NHS staff to deliver this treatment within epilepsy services.

3. We have recruited 334 children and young people from across England. Half of these were randomly assigned to receive the modified version of MATCH-ADTC in addition to their usual care. The other half were randomly assigned to receive an enhanced version of their usual care.

4. We compared the two groups after treatment to see if there were differences in terms of the mental and physical health of children and young people. We also investigated whether the new treatment was value for money and talked to the young people and families to understand their experience of treatment and how to improve it.

Our public and patient involvement (PPI) research advisory group and epilepsy charities ensured that the research focused on issues that matter most to them. We used both traditional and modern (social media) methods to tell people about the findings. Epilepsy Research UK (ERUK) have published a blog based on our PPI members' experiences of being involved in research and most importantly what they wish they would have known about caring for a child with epilepsy from the start, which we hope will be shared widely for clinicians to inform their practice. The blog can be found here

Our celebration event was hosted on Monday 19th June 2023 from 10-1 following data collection completion.

Recording

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Videos from Mental Elf

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