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This core double module is taken by all students on both the MSc in Clinical Mental Health Sciences and the MSc in Mental Health Sciences Research. The aim is to teach and consolidate a set of key skills and principles that are important both for understanding and conducting clinical research.
The core teaching for the module consists of 12 half day sessions in the first term of the academic year. Teaching is through a mixture of smaller seminars, facilitating discussion and the development of skills, and larger group lectures. All students are also assigned at the beginning of the year to a study group, which is used both as a means of supporting students and promoting social cohesion, and as a basis for organisation of group tasks and activities, which are an important part of this module. Considerable use is also made of the UCL Moodle on-line learning environment, with preparatory material, further reading and practical tasks accompanying each topic. Additional learning is through attendance at the MSc Journal Club on Wednesday afternoons, which cross-cuts modules
The summative assessments for this module are on systematic reviews (design of a protocol, search strategy, and data extraction methods); instrument design (design of a short questionnaire together with a strategy for piloting it and testing psychometric properties); and an MCQ exam testing understanding of and ability to apply core concepts.
Flexible and part time students are advised to take this module at the beginning of the course. Any student planning to take the double module in Epidemiological and Social Research Methods needs to take Core Principles of Mental Health Research first.
Module Leaders
The following group of academics is coordinating the Core Principles in Mental Health Research Module. A variety of other teachers from the Division of Psychiatry will also be involved.
Sonia Johnson is Professor of Social and Community Psychiatry at UCL and Consultant Psychiatrist in the Islington Early Intervention Service for psychosis. Her research interests are in investigating what types of treatments and services work best for people with significant mental health problems. Areas in which she has published include acute care, including alternatives to admission, early intervention in psychosis, employment and mental health, and services for women. She is currently leading two major studies funded by the National Institute for Health Research: the CORE programme, which aims to optimise crisis team care () and the CIRCLE study, a trial of a new intervention for cannabis use in early psychosis. She is the Course Director of the MSc in Mental Health Sciences Research, and the MSc in Clinical Mental Health Sciences, and previously led the part-time UCL MSc in Psychiatric Research.
Dr Sarah Rowe(s.rowe@ucl.ac.uk)
Sarah Rowe is a Lecturer at UCL on the MSc in Clinical Mental Health Sciences and also works part of the time as a Postdoctoral Research Worker at King's College London. Her research interests include personality, common mental disorders and psychological resilience. Currently, Sarah is working on a study that is developing a web-based decision aid for adolescents that self-harm.
Module Contents
The main areas covered will be:
- How to define a research question, select a design and develop a protocol in mental health research
- How to search and systematically review the literature
- How to interpret mental health research papers
- How to write for publication and disseminate research both to scientific and clinical audiences and the public.
- How to write questions and design and test research instruments.
- How to design research that is ethically acceptable and how to obtain approvals to do research in the NHS.
- How to involve the public, especially service users and carers, in research.
- How to take account of diversity in mental health research.
- Core concepts in epidemiological research and in the design of randomised controlled trials.
- Introduction to the use of qualitative research methods in mental health
- Major approaches to biological research in mental health.
Learning Outcomes
These are the main intended learning outcomes for the module:
- Students will be able to comment on academic papers reporting findings in mental health in a way that is informed by an understanding of research practicalities and of how quantitative and qualitative data may be interpreted.
- Students will be able to draft an appropriately structured outline study protocol, based on clear research questions, aims and hypotheses.
- Students will be able to search the literature systematically and report their results.
- Students will be able to write clearly in styles appropriate both for academic publication and for dissemination of research to lay audiences.
- Students will be able to write questions that are appropriate for research data collection and to comment on the quality of research questionnaires.
- Students will be able to write a patient information sheet for a study, and to describe the steps that need to be taken to obtain approval for the study.
- Students will be familiar with the principles of sampling and data collection and able to suggest strategies that could be used to obtain an appropriate sample in a research design.
- Students will be familiar with basic epidemiological concepts such as bias and confounding, and will be able to comment on their occurrence in research papers.
- Students will be able to describe how individually randomized controlled trials are conducted and to assess the quality of a trial design.
- Students will be able to assess how far studies take account of diversity, especially of culture, and to outline strategies for improving representativeness of research.
- Students will be able to identify research questions that are appropriately addressed through qualitative methods and to suggest appropriate strategies for doing so.