Real world outcomes key to research into schizophrenia and bipolar disorders

22 July

More help and support is needed for people who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – that’s the word from Health and Care Research Wales’ new Specialty Lead for Mental Health, Dr Kimberley Kendall.

Dr Kendall, a clinical academic psychiatrist specialising in rehabilitation psychiatry, said that people living with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder often experience difficulty getting a job or housing - despite treatment, and highlighted the crucial role that public involvement could play in research into schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Health and Care Research Wales is currently promoting an opportunity for people living with the conditions – or who know someone who is – to help with a study run by Dr Kendall and her team at Cardiff University to improve targeted rehabilitation (closing date 27 July).

Dr Kendall said: “I’m looking for people who will help guide this research and its focus and ultimately, to help us make a difference.

“I’m interested in real-world outcomes, as my experience suggests that these matter to patients and I believe their experience means the findings are more likely to end up being used clinically.

“I do research to develop findings that can be used to help patients so there’s no one in a better place to guide my choice of research topics than patients. In fact, my interactions with my patients in clinical practice were a key reason for my switching to examining real world outcomes.”

Dr Kendall’s study will look for comparisons between how certain genetic variants affect the way people live. She will use data on how people with these conditions live from electronic health records and develop a model to predict who will require greater support from rehabilitation psychiatry, resulting in targeted treatment early on after diagnosis.

After graduating in Medicine and Medical Genetics at Cardiff University, Dr Kendall initially planned on pursuing a career in Neurology before discovering her interest in Psychiatry. She trained on an integrated clinical academic training scheme (Wales Clinical Academic Track) and qualified as a consultant in General Adult Psychiatry with an endorsement in Rehabilitation Psychiatry.

She completed her PhD, funded by a Wellcome Trust Fellowship, on the effects of a rare type of genetic variant which affects psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders like intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

Clinically, Dr Kendall works in the All Wales Psychiatric Genomics Service - which is the first psychiatric genetics service in the UK – which she said she was ‘very proud’ of, because of the direct translation of research findings into clinical care.